Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania Archives - Page 8 of 12

SNAP Speaks Out on PA Budget Issues

In a series of three new position papers, the Safety-Net Association has laid out the case for why Pennsylvania needs to fund its Medicaid program adequately in the state’s upcoming 2015 fiscal year.
The first paper, “Pennsylvania Safety-Net Hospitals: Economic Engines Driving Pennsylvania Communities,” documents the degree to which safety-net hospitals not only provide significant numbers of jobs but also offer higher wages than other hospitals and other Pennsylvania employers.
The second paper, “The Importance of Preserving Uncompensated Care Payments,” notes that Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, just 25 percent of the state’s acute-care hospitals, provide nearly 50 percent of the $1 billion worth of uncompensated care hospitals in the state provide every year. The state helps underwrite some of those costs through Tobacco Uncompensated Care fund payments – proceeds of the national tobacco settlement of 1998 – but that funding is now in jeopardy.
And the third paper, “The Need for Stable and Predictable Funding Amid Increasing Challenges,” outlines the enormous and at times conflicting pressures that government and others are exerting on hospitals and explains that while safety-net hospitals look forward to these challenges, they need stable and predictable Medicaid funding to help them rise to the occasion.
SNAP issues these papers as lawmakers in Pennsylvania struggle with an FY 2014 revenue shortfall of more than $500 million and an anticipated shortfall of another $880 million in the coming 2015 fiscal year.
See SNAP’s three new position papers here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-06-20T06:00:20+00:00June 20th, 2014|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Late Budget for PA?

Pennsylvania’s constitution calls for the state to adopt a budget for the next fiscal year by June 30, the end of its fiscal year, but it is looking more and more as if the legislature and governor will miss that deadline this year.
Although budgets typically come easily when the same party controls the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the General Assembly, the state’s revenue shortfall, a structural deficit that will carry over into next year, and the introduction of additional issues into the budget process appear to be slowing progress toward adopting a spending plan for the state’s 2015 fiscal year.
To reinforce the notion that June 30 may come and go without a budget adopted, state Senate majority leader Dominic Pileggi recently told members of his Republican caucus to put their fourth of July celebration plans on hold because their work for the legislative season may not be done.
At stake for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals is funding for the state’s Medicaid program. The budget includes numerous items that may prove tempting for officials to prune in search of money to close the current revenue shortfall. Most tempting may be millions in Tobacco Uncompensated Care Fund revenue frozen by the Corbett administration last year in response to an arbitrator’s decision to reduce the state’s proceeds from the national tobacco settlement.
Tobacco Uncompensated Care funds help underwrite some of the $1 billion in charity care Pennsylvania’s hospitals provide annually – more than 40 percent of it provided by the 25 percent of acute-care hospitals in the state that are safety-net hospitals. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) is conveying its concern about the possibility of reducing this funding to legislators.
Learn more about the potential delay in adopting a state budget in this PA Politics report and this York Dispatch article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-06-18T06:00:38+00:00June 18th, 2014|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

No Observation Rate Yet for PA Medicaid

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare has published a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin continuing its current payment methodology under the state’s Medicaid program but noting that it still has not developed an observation rate for the program.
Last year the state indicated that it wanted to establish such an observation rate, but it has not yet done so. The new notice states that

The Department also announced its intent to establish an observation rate for hospital cases for which an inpatient admission is not medically necessary, but medical observation of a patient is required. The Department received multiple public comments concerning an intended observation rate. At this time, the Department plans to develop a payment policy and rates for observation services and will provide an opportunity for public comment in a future notice of intent.

At the time the state expressed an interest in developing an observation rate, the Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania wrote to the Department of Public Welfare expressing support for the concept. Read SNAP’s letter here.
Find the entire Pennsylvania Bulletin notice here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-05-19T06:00:51+00:00May 19th, 2014|Pennsylvania Bulletin, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Report Questions Fairness of Medicare Quality and Incentive Programs

A draft technical report by the National Quality Forum has called into question the fairness of Affordable Care Act Medicare programs that seek to provide financial incentives to hospitals that meet selected quality care standards and penalize those that fail to meet those standards.
According to the report, which was commissioned by the Obama administration, these programs unfairly penalize hospitals that care for especially large numbers of low-income seniors – hospitals like those that belong to the Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania.
The report notes, according to the New York Times, that

Low-income people may be unable to afford needed medications or transportation to doctor’s offices and clinics, the panel said. If they have low levels of formal education or literacy, they may have difficulty understanding or following written instructions for home care and the use of medications. In addition, the clinics and hospitals they use may lack the resources and high tech equipment needed to diagnose and treat illnesses.

Among the programs cited for this problem are Medicare’s value-based purchasing program and its hospital readmissions reduction program.
Read more about the programs’ challenges, as well as the views of those who believe the programs are working as intended and should not be adjusted, in this New York Times article. Go here, to the National Quality Forum’s web site, for a direct link to the study, titled “Risk Adjustment for Socioeconomic Status or Other Sociodemographic Factors.”

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-28T10:41:20+00:00April 28th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Public Comments on PA Medicaid Expansion Plan: Thumbs Down

Most of the people who submitted formal comments to the federal government about Pennsylvania’s plan to expand its Medicaid program wrote in opposition to the proposal.
The proposal, part of the Corbett administration’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” plan, calls for the state to use federal Medicaid funds to purchase private health insurance for people newly eligible for Medicaid.
According to a Community Legal Services of Philadelphia review completed two days before the April 11 submission deadline, 95 percent of those who expressed an opinion about the proposal opposed it, three percent supported it, and two percent offered mixed views.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania submitted formal comments expressing support for the Medicaid expansion proposal. SNAP’S comments can be found here.
Read a report about the comments, including why various groups did or did not support the proposal, in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-17T06:00:23+00:00April 17th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Deadline for Commenting on PA Medicaid Expansion Proposal Approaches

The deadline for interested parties to submit formal comments to the federal government about Pennsylvania’s request for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements in expanding its Medicaid program is this Friday, April 11 at 6:00 a.m.
Interested parties may submit their comments here.
Safety-net hospitals interested in submitting comments are invited to borrow from SNAP’s comment letter, which can be found here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-08T06:00:37+00:00April 8th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

SNAP Endorses PA Medicaid Expansion

The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania has endorsed Pennsylvania’s application for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements so the state can expand its Medicaid program as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act.
Instead of expanding its current Medicaid program, however, the Corbett administration proposes that the newly eligible purchase approved private insurance plans, with the state to pay the premiums. This is part of the administration’s Healthy Pennsylvania proposal.
In endorsing the waiver application in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, SNAP expressed particular support for its proposal to create a Healthy Pennsylvania Safety Net Pool that would include an Uncompensated Care Pool and/or a Delivery System Reform Incentive Pool. The additional funding associated with such pools, SNAP believes, would help safety-net hospitals address the distinct needs of the low-income communities such hospitals serve.
See the letter of endorsement here, on the SNAP web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-04T09:53:00+00:00April 4th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

PA Submits Medicaid Plan to Feds

Yesterday the Corbett administration submitted a waiver application to the federal government requesting permission to expand the state’s Medicaid program as described in its “Healthy Pennsylvania” proposal.
The Pennsylvania proposal seeks to vary from the approach taken by most states expanding their Medicaid programs in accordance with the Affordable Care Act by directing the expansion population into private health insurance plans.
A draft waiver application, released in December, was the subject of public hearings throughout the state. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) testified at one of those hearings and also submitted detailed written comments about the proposal; both can be found here.
The state’s waiver application, the December draft application, a summary of the application, and the written and oral comments about the proposed application submitted by interested parties can be found here, on the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare’s web site. Learn more about the proposal’s submission to the federal government and where it goes from here in this Ellwood City Ledger article and the reaction of some elected officials to the submission here.
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PA Safety Net Admin2014-02-20T06:00:20+00:00February 20th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Corbett Budget Proposes Mixed Bag for Safety-Net Hospitals

Yesterday Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett unveiled his proposed FY 2015 budget – a mixed bag for the state’s safety-net hospitals.
The budget proposes increased spending for Medicaid services, compensates for the loss of federal Medicaid funding expected when the state’s Medicaid matching rate declines later this year, and proposes new funding to help develop clinics and encourage medical professionals to work in rural and underserved parts of Pennsylvania.
On the other hand, the budget proposes slight reductions in selected supplemental payments that are important to safety-net hospitals, counts on significant savings derived through the Healthy Pennsylvania program that has not yet been approved by the federal government, and assumes that the state will prevail in its appeal of an arbitration ruling that would severely reduce the funding the state uses to make tobacco uncompensated care payments to qualified hospitals.
SNAP has prepared a detailed summary of the budget proposal that addresses the aspects of the budget that are most important to safety-net hospitals. Interested parties may request a copy by hitting the “contact us” link in the upper right-hand corner of this screen.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-02-05T10:53:42+00:00February 5th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Healthy PA Hearings End

Public hearings on the Corbett administration’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” health care reform and Medicaid insurance expansion proposal ended last week with a hearing in Harrisburg.
Forty people testified at the final hearing, including SNAP president Michael Chirieleison; his oral testimony and SNAP’s more detailed written submission can be found here.
For a summary of the final hearing and a look at what might happen next according to Department of Public Welfare Secretary Beverly Mackereth, see this article on the web site of WITF, Harrisburg’s public television station.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-17T06:00:48+00:00January 17th, 2014|Healthy PA|Comments Off

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