Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
MACPAC Meets
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss a variety of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program issues. MACPAC, the non-partisan legislative branch agency that performs policy and data analysis and makes recommendations to Congress, the administration, and the states, addressed a number of issues during the meeting. Among them it discussed Medicaid managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) and voted to recommend that states be given the opportunity to seek permission to make Medicaid beneficiary enrollment in managed care plans mandatory [...]
ACA Improves Access to Surgical Services
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion has improved access to surgical services for Medicaid patients. Or so says a new study published in JAMA Surgery, which reports that In this study of patients with 1 of 5 common surgical conditions, Medicaid expansion was associated with a 7.5–percentage point increase in insurance coverage at the time of hospital admission. The policy was also associated with patients obtaining care earlier in their disease course and with an increased probability of receiving optimal care for those conditions. As a result, the study found, [...]
Docs Not Scoring Performance Bonuses
Relatively few physicians will receive Medicare pay-for-performance bonuses under Medicare’s value-based modifier program in 2018. The question now is whether this is because of uninspiring performance or indifference to the program. Of the approximately 1.1 million clinicians who participate in Medicare, only two percent – 22,000 – will receive pay increases in 2018 based on their 2016 performance. Those raises will range from 6.6 percent to 19.9 percent. Most doctors will receive neither bonuses nor penalties. And roughly 300,000 failed to submit the data required by the program. In the [...]
Medicaid in the Spotlight
State-option work requirements. A cap on federal spending. New flexibility for states to address eligibility, benefits, and provider payments. Rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s eligibility expansion. Medicaid is under the policy microscope in Washington these days in ways it has not been for many years as the new administration continues to work to put its stamp on the federal government’s major program to provide health care to low-income Americans. What are policy-makers considering and what are the potential implications of their efforts? Learn more in the new Health Affairs [...]
Conflicts of Interest Mar HCBS
States’ efforts to provide home- and community-based services to elderly and disabled Medicaid beneficiaries who need assistance to continue living independently continue to be plagued with conflicts of interest that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is not adequately addressing. Or so concludes a new study published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the GAO, …conflict of interest remain in regard to HCBS providers and managed care plans. HCBS providers may have a financial interest in the outcome of needs assessments, which could lead to overstating needs [...]