Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Federal Health Policy Update for February 15
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for February 9-15. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Department of Health and Human Services HHS has released a 2023 update of its Equity Action Plan. The plan outlines five priority areas to advance equity: prevent neglect and improve care to help children thrive in their families and communities; promote accessible and welcoming health care for all; improve maternal health outcomes for rural, racial, and ethnic minority communities; prioritize the behavioral health [...]
Looming Medicaid Challenges
State Medicaid programs are facing significant financial challenges in the coming years. Among them: less federal Medicaid matching money, a continued call by providers for increased payments, and a growing demand to use Medicaid to help address behavioral health challenges. In addition, proponents of investing more Medicaid money in home- and community-based services can be expected to ask state Medicaid programs to cover more services while those programs face a growing demand to use Medicaid resources to address social determinants of health such as poor housing and hunger. At the [...]
No Surprises Act Implementation Yields Mixed Results
Is the No Surprises Act working? Is it protecting patients from surprise medical bills? Are providers and insurers happy? The Washington Post reports mixed results. On one hand, millions of people have been protected from surprise medical bills. But on the other hand… Experts thought that once the terms of the program were understood there would be only about 22,000 cases sent to arbitration – the law’s Independent Dispute Resolution process – in 2022. Instead, nearly 500,000 cases went that route, with nearly half of the requests for arbitration coming [...]
States Not Depending on Federal Action on Prior Authorization
Unwilling to leave the challenge of addressing the troubling prior authorization practices of many health insurers, officials in some states are trying to take matters into their own hands. Last year, lawmakers in 29 states considered 90 different bills to impose varying prior authorization requirements on health insurers serving their constituents. Among the changes these proposals seek: shorter response times for requests for authorization and mandatory public reporting of insurers’ prior authorization activity. In addition, last year five states required insurers to engage in a practice known as gold carding: [...]
Millions Dropped From Medicaid Rolls
With the two-year “Medicaid unwinding” process nearly half complete, 9.5 million Americans have lost their Medicaid coverage – among them more than 3.7 million children. To date, 48 million of the 71 million people enrolled in Medicaid at pandemic’s end have had their eligibility reviewed. So far, many of those who were at first ruled ineligible were dropped for procedural reasons, such as failing to file paperwork on time, but many of those people eventually had their benefits restored. Still, estimates that 15 million people would lose their Medicaid eligibility [...]