Category Archives: Shared Savings
Medicare ACOs: Too Much Risk, Too Quickly?
As seen on RACMonitor.
More than a third of ACOs might leave if the proposed rule takes effect.
The comment period closed for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) proposed rule on Oct. 16. The MSSP has been a controversial program since its inception. The chief concern is that the financial “dis-incentives” will decrease the number of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The proposed rule for MSSP intensifies the financial “dis-incentives,” causing even more concern about the number of ACOs.
What is the Medicare Shared Savings Program? It is a voluntary program that is supposed to encourage groups of doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers to come together as ACOs to give coordinated, high-quality care to their Medicare patients. Providers can choose among three distinctive tracks, depending on the amount of risk the providers want to bear. The purpose of the MSSP is to diversify risk – of both loss and gain – between the government and the ACOs. For example, Track 1 ACOs do not assume downside risk (shared losses) if they do not lower growth in Medicare expenditures.
CMS created the MSSP in hopes that doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers would want to participate, with the incentive of the chance to make more money, rather than remaining in the traditional Medicare relationship. The program turned out to be more successful than anticipated, with the majority of ACOs opting to become Track 1, or the least risky model (one-sided risk).
CMS’s new proposed rule, however, increases the risk placed on the ACOs. Needless to say, providers aren’t happy, and many ACOs in the program warn that they’ll drop out if CMS finalizes its proposal as is.
What are these proposed changes to the MSSP?
Restricting Track 1 Enrollment
ACOs currently have six years to shift to a risk-bearing model from a shared savings-only model (Track 1). The proposed rule would give existing ACOs one year and new ACOs two years to transfer to a risk-bearing model. This one change could cause mass exodus from the MSSP, as many providers are, by nature, risk-averse.
Morphing to Five-Year Agreement Periods
The proposed rule requires CMS and the ACOs to morph into using five-year agreement periods. I am on the fence regarding this change. It could strengthen ACOs’ incentives to reduce spending by breaking the link between ACOs’ performance in the first two years of each agreement period and their future benchmarks. However, this modification could worsen incentives during the first two years of each agreement period. I would love to hear your opinions.
Slashing Shared Savings Rates
The proposed rule purports to slash shared savings rates for upside-risk models from 50 percent to as low as 25 percent. Under the one-sided model years of the glide path, an ACO’s maximum shared savings rate would be 25 percent, based on quality performance, applicable to first-dollar shared savings after the ACO meets the minimum savings rate. The glide path concludes with a maximum 50 percent sharing rate, based on quality performance, and a maximum level of risk, which qualifies a provider as an Advanced APM for purposes of the Quality Payment Program.
Other proposed changes include the following:
- A bifurcated system for high- and low-revenue ACOs, which functionally would penalize certain ACOs for the size of their patient populations and volume of services.
- A differential system for experienced versus inexperienced ACOs, which would allow experienced ACOs to choose from a more robust menu of participation options.
- Dis-incentives to lower spending: ACOs have had little incentive to lower spending because of the link between the spending reductions they achieve and subsequent benchmarks. One could argue that it is astonishing that the MSSP has produced any savings at all. CMS proposes that the MSSP needs to be re-vamped.
- A modified and more rigorous application review process to screen for good standing among ACOs seeking to renew or re-enter MSSP after termination or expiration of their previous agreement. ACOs in two-sided models would be held accountable for partial-year losses if either the ACO or CMS terminates the agreement during a performance year.
Will there be too much risk too quickly placed on the ACOs? Stay tuned for whether this proposed rule becomes finalized.
NC Docs Face Retroactive Medicaid Rate Cut
This is a story from NC Health News by Rose Hoban…a follow up blog to come…
In the 2014 state budget passed last August, state lawmakers inserted what could be considered a poison pill for Medicaid providers: a 3 percent pay cut that for specialists could be effective retroactively to January 2014.
Primary care providers such as pediatricians, internists and family doctors will see the same pay cut, effective back to Jan. 1, 2015.
But the cut is only now being implemented.
“All of us were optimistic that the cut wouldn’t happen,” said Karen Smith, a family doctor in Raeford who runs her own practice.
Smith said she and other physicians have been writing, calling and talking to legislators, working to convince them not to implement the cut.
But she and thousands of other primary care providers received notification late last week that on March 1 they would begin seeing the 3 percent cut.
And for specialists, the reduction will go back 14 months.
“It’s quite a hit,” said Elaine Ellis, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Medical Society.
Failed shared-savings plan behind the problem
The origin of the 3 percent cut goes back to the 2013 budget for Medicaid, the program that covers health care for low-income children, some of their parents, pregnant women and low-income seniors. In 2013, the federal government paid North Carolina 65.5 percent of every dollar billed for Medicaid-eligible care, while the state covered the other 34.5 percent (The rate, which changes annually, is 65.9 percent for 2015).
In 2013, the Medicaid budget had grown to close to $4 billion in state dollars, and lawmakers at the General Assembly were looking for ways to trim costs. So they devised a “shared-savings” program, in which Medicaid providers would take a 3 percent rate cut that would be collected by the state Department of Health and Human Services. If doctors and hospitals saved money by operating more efficiently, DHHS would share those savings back with the providers, effectively reducing the amount of the 3 percent cut.
But DHHS needed federal approval to initiate the program, which would have been complicated. The agency never submitted a plan to the federal government, so neither part of the program was initiated.
That created a problem for lawmakers, who had calculated the savings from the rate cut into their state budget. When lawmakers returned to Raleigh in 2014 to adjust the state’s biennial budget, they implemented the rate cut retroactively to Jan 1, 2014 for specialists. Primary care providers, such as Karen Smith, had their rate cut put off until the beginning of 2015.
Big bucks
Officials from the Medical Society have been gathering numbers from around the state and are finding that some specialty practices could owe tens of thousands of dollars that would need to be repaid to state coffers.
The need for retroactive payment is in part a logistical problem: The computerized Medicaid management information system, known as NCTracks, has not been able to process the cuts. NCTracks has had technical issues since it was rolled out in mid-2013; at that time, glitches in the system created months of delays and tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid services for providers.
“Requiring these [specialist] medical practices to pay back 3 percent of what the state has already paid them for the last 14 months would wreak havoc with the finances of these businesses – really, any business would struggle to recover from such a financial blow,” Robert Schaaf, a Raleigh radiologist and president of the Medical Society, wrote Monday in a press release.
And primary care doctors like Smith are also fretting over paying back 3 percent of what she earned from Medicaid for the past two months.
“Practices such as my own are functioning on an operating budget that’s month by month,” said Smith, who said that a great many of her patients are Medicaid recipients.
“We simply do not have that type of operating reserve to allow for that,” she said.
The cuts will be especially tough for rural providers, who have high numbers of Medicaid patients, said Greg Griggs from the N.C. Academy of Family Practitioners (The Academy of Family Practitioners is a North Carolina Health News sponsor).
“It’s one thing to make the cuts going forward, but to take money back, especially for that period of time, is pretty significant for people who’ve been willing to take care of our most needy citizens,” Griggs said.
“It’s pretty bad,” he said, “and its not like Medicaid pays extraordinarily well to begin with.”
Piling on
In addition to the state cut is a federal cut of 1 percent to Medicaid reimbursements for primary care providers that went into effect on Jan. 1.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, primary care providers like Smith got a bump in reimbursement last year, but that ran out with the new year. Smith said that legislators in other states found ways to keep paying that enhanced rate for primary care doctors.
“We were hoping our legislators would do the same,” she said.
Instead, Smith finds herself talking to her staff about possible reductions, and she’s hearing from providers in her area that they’re throwing in the towel.
“I already have colleagues who’ve left practice of medicine in this area,” she said. “My personal physician is no longer in this area. Another colleague who was a resident three years in front of me told me he cannot deal with the economics of practicing like this anymore.”
Smith acknowledged that North Carolina’s Medicaid program has a slightly higher reimbursement to physicians than surrounding states. But she said many of her patients are quite ill.
“We are in the stroke belt,” she said, referring to the high rate of strokes in eastern North Carolina. “When we look at how sick our patients are compared to other states, is it equivalent? Are we measuring apples to apples?
Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty: A Review of Our 40-Year-Old Stalemate in Health Care Reform
Well, folks, it is official. I am “over the hill.” Yup. My birthday is today, January 7, 1975, and I was born 40 years ago.
Instead of moping around, I have decided to embrace my 40s. For starters, let’s take a look at where we were 40 years ago. Obviously, personally, I was in utero. But what about the country? What about health care?
Not surprisingly, even 40 years ago, politicians were discussing the same issues with health care as we are now. Some things never change…or do they???
In my “40 years in review” blog, I want to discuss why we, as a nation, are still arguing about the same health care issues that we were arguing about 40 years ago. And, perhaps, the reason why we have been in a 40-year-old stalemate in health care reform.
Today, we have a diverged nation when it comes to health care. Democrats want to expand public health insurance (i.e., Medicaid) and tend to favor a higher degree of government oversight of health care to ensure that health care is available to all people. Republicans, on the other hand, believe that the financial burden of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the federal and state level is unsustainable, and people will receive less than adequate health care. Republicans tend to favor privatization of Medicaid, while liberals oppose such ideas.
Health care reform has been a hot topic for over 40 years…with some interesting differences…
Going back to 1975…
Gerald Ford, a Republican, was our nation’s president, and we were in a nationwide recession.
Under Ford, the American Medical Society (AMA) proposed a new plan for health care, an employer mandate proposal.
According to a 1975 Chicago Tribune journalist, the AMA’s new proposal pushed for a broader government role in health care. See below.
“The new [ ] plan would cover both employees and the unemployed, along with poor people and those considered uninsurable because of medical or mental problems. It would require employers to subsidize health care for employees and their families and pay at least 65 % of each premium. It would also require the government to provide partially subsidized health insurance, financed from general revenues, for the poor and the unemployed. It calls for medical insurance benefits covering 365 days of hospital care during any one year, 100 days of nursing home care, and home health, mental, and dental service for children aged 2 and up. All but the poorest beneficiaries would share premium costs and would pay 20 per cent for the services provided, but no individual would pay more than $1,500 a year and no family more than $2,000 a year for health care.”
Chicago Tribune, “The A.M.A.’s subsidy plan” April 19, 1975 (emphasis added) (no author was cited).
Interestingly, in that same newspaper from April 19, 1975, advertisements show towels for $1.89, pants for teenagers for $4.99, a swivel rocker for $88, and a BBQ grill for $12.88. My how times have changed!
Those prices also indicate how much buying power was involved with the AMA’s proposal, and what it meant to suggest that an individual might have to pay up to $1,500 a year, and a family up to $2,000 a year, for health care – a lot of money back then!
In 1976, Pres. Ford proposed adding catastrophic coverage to Medicare, offset by increased cost sharing. These are examples of Pres. Ford (a Republican) creating more government involvement in health care and expanding health care to everyone.
After Pres. Ford, came Pres. Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981, a Democrat.
Pres. Carter campaigned on the notion of “universal health care for everyone;” however, once in office he decided instead to rein in costs, and not expand coverage. In the prior decade (1960), the consumer price index had increased by 79.7%, while hospital costs had risen 237%. President Carter proposed an across-the-board cap on hospital charges that would limit annual increases to 1.5 times any rise in the consumer price index.
Pres. Carter was also quoted from public speeches saying, “We must clean up the disgraceful Medicaid scandals.”
Pres. Carter’s stance on “universal” health care was: “that such a program would be financed through both the employer and the payroll taxes, as well as general revenue taxes. Patients would still be free to choose their own physician, but the federal government would set doctor’s fees and establish controls to monitor the cost and quality of health care.”
In May 1979, Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat, proposed a new universal national health insurance bill—offering a choice of competing federally-regulated private health insurance plans with no cost sharing financed by income-based premiums via an employer mandate and individual mandate, replacement of Medicaid by government payment of premiums to private insurers, and enhancement of Medicare by adding prescription drug coverage and eliminating premiums and cost sharing.
These are examples of Democrats, Pres. Carter, by not expanding health care coverage and reining in costs, and Sen. Kennedy, by proposing privatization of Medicaid, acting in a more conservative nature, or, as a conservative nature would be perceived today.
So when did the parties flip-flop? Why did the parties flip-flop? And the most important question…if we have been struggling with the exact same issues on health care for over 40 years, why has our health care system not been fixed? There has certainly been enough time, ideas, and proposed bills.
While I do not profess to know the answer, my personal opinion is the severe and debilitating polarizations of the two main political parties have rendered this country into a 40-year-old stalemate when it comes to health care reform and are the reason why the solution has not been adopted and put into practice.
Maybe back in 1979, when Senator Kennedy proposed replacing Medicaid with private insurance, Republicans refused to agree, simply because a Democrat proposed the legislation.
Today when Republican candidates campaign on privatizing Medicaid and the Democrats vehemently oppose such action, maybe the opposition is not to the idea, but to the party making the proposal.
Just a thought…
And here’s to the next 40!!!
PCS Medicaid Reimbursement Rates Are TOO LOW to Maintain Adequate Quality of Care, in Violation of the Code of Federal Regulations!
I recently spoke at the Association for Hospice and Home Care (AHHC) and the NC Association for Long Term Care Facilities (NCLTCF) conferences. At issue at both conferences was the reimbursement rate for personal care services (PCS), which is extremely important to both home health agencies (HHAs) and long-term care facilities (LTCFs).
Both AHHC and NCLTCF, as associations, are vital to the HHAs and LTCFs across the state. Associations provide a network of peers, up-to-date information, and lobbying efforts. The old saying, “United we stand, divided we fall,” comes to mind.
The saying, “United we stand, divided we fall,” was originally coined by Aesop, one of my favorite storytellers of all time, in the story “The Four Oxen and the Lion,” which goes like this:
“A lion used to prowl about a field in which four oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field. Then the lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.”
“UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.”
I think “The Four Oxen and the Lion” is indicative as to the importance of an association, generally. An association is truly essential when it comes to lobbying. There are two times during which we have a potential impact as to the wording of statutes: (1) During the forefront, by lobbying efforts; and (2) At the backend, through litigation. Obviously, if the forefront is successful, then there becomes no need for the backend.
Much to my chagrin, in my explanation above, I am the “backend.” Hmmmm.
Because I am a litigator and not a lobbyist, I am only called upon if the forefront fails.
In the last session, the General Assembly enacted Session Law 2014-100, which reduced the Medicaid reimbursement rates for all services by 3%.
“SECTION 12H.18.(b). During the 2013-2015 fiscal biennium, the Department of Health and Human Services shall withhold reduce by three percent (3%) of the payments … on or after January 1, 2014” (emphasis added).”
The PCS reimbursement rate became $13.88. Session Law 2014-100 was signed into law August 7, 2014; however, Session Law 2014-100 purports to be effective retroactively as of October 2013. (This brings into question these possible recoupments for services already rendered, which, in my opinion, would violate federal and state law, but such possible violations (or probable or currently occurring violations are a topic for another blog).
It is without question that the Medicaid reimbursement rate for PCS is too low. In NC, the PCS reimbursement rate is currently set at $13.88/hour (or $3.47/15 minutes). It is also without question that there is a direct correlation between reimbursement rates and quality of care.
Because Medicaid pays for approximately 67% of all nursing home residents and recipients of home health care in USA, the Medicaid reimbursement rates and methods are central to understanding the quality of care received by PCS services and the level of staffing criteria expected.
PCS for adults are not a required Medicaid service. As in, a state may opt to provide PCS services or not. As of 2012, 31 states/provinces provided PCS services for adults and 25 did not. Most notably, Florida, Virginia, and South Carolina did not provide PCS services for adults. See Kaiser Family Foundation website.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation, “For the personal care services state plan option, the average rate paid to provider agencies [across the nation] was $18.19 per hour in 2012, a slight increase from $17.91 per hour in 2011. In states where personal care services providers were paid directly by the state or where reimbursement rates were determined by the state, the average reimbursement rate was $16.31 per hour in 2012. Medicaid provider reimbursement rates are often set by state legislatures as part of the budget process.”
See the below chart for a state by state comparison:
Why should we care about the Medicaid PCS reimbursement rates?
1. Low reimbursement rates directly, and negatively, impact quality of care.
2. The aides who provide the PCS services, whether in someone’s home or at a LTCF, are often, him or herself on Medicaid.
3. It is in our best interest as a public for home health care agencies and LTCF to continue to accept Medicaid recipients.
4. It is in our best interest as a public for home health agencies and LTCF to stay in business.
#1: Low reimbursement rates directly, and negatively, impact quality of care.
42 U.S.C.A §1396a requires that a state provide Medicaid reimbursement rates at a level to “assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and are sufficient to enlist enough providers so that care and services are available under the plan at least to the extent that such care and services are available to the general population…”
In an article entitled “Nurse Staffing Levels and Medicaid Reimbursement Rates in Nursing Facilities,” written by Charlene Harrington, James H Swan, and Helen Carrillo, the authors found that the Medicaid nursing home reimbursement rates were linked to quality of care, as to both RN hours and total nursing hours.
“Resident case mix was a positive predictor of RN hours and a negative predictor of total nursing hours. Higher state minimum RN staffing standards was a positive predictor of RN and total nursing hours while for-profit facilities and the percent of Medicaid residents were negative predictors.”
Numerous other articles have been published in the last few years that cite the direct correlation between reimbursement rates and quality of care.
The argument can be made that $13.88 is too low a reimbursement rate to ensure adequate quality of care. However, again, because this rate was not prevented at the forefront, it would entail a “backend” act of litigation to adjust the current reimbursement rate. (It is important to note that beginning next year, there will be an additional reduction of rate by another 1%).
#2: The aides who provide the PCS services, whether in someone’s home or at a LTCF, is often, him or herself on Medicaid.
According to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, an advocacy group for home care workers, 1 in 4 home health workers has a household income below the federal poverty line and more than 1 in 3 do not have health insurance.
Think about this…home care workers provide PCS to the elderly, disabled, and needy, many of which are on Medicaid and Medicare. Home care workers work full-time changing diapers, assisting with ambulation, dressing, and grooming for the elderly, yet 1 in 4 home care workers are eligible for Medicaid themselves.
Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour. 18 states have minimum wage equal to the federal minimum wage, including North Carolina. 23 states set minimum wage higher than the federal level. Washington D.C. pays the highest minimum wage at $9.50/hour.
PCS reimbursement rates in NC are $3.47/15 minutes, or $13.88/hour. $13.88 is above the federal and NC minimum wage of $7.25. However, just because the PCS reimbursement rate is $13.88/hour does not mean that the PCS workers are receiving $13.88/hour. The owners of HHAs and LTCFs pay their workers much less than $13.88/hour; they have overhead, insurance, taxes, salaries, etc. to pay…not to mention a percentage of the $13.88/hour needs to be allocated to profit (albeit, however, small).
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013, the average PCS worker’s salary in NC is $19,392/year, or $1,660/month. Working 40 hours a week, a salary of $17,280 equates to approximately $10.10/hour. Obviously, $10.10 is well-above our $7.25 minimum wage, although difficult to make ends meet.
The average fast food worker’s hourly wage is $7.73.
In order for an increase of hourly pay, of any amount, for home health workers, the Medicaid PCS reimbursement rate would need to be increased.
With the current PCS rate at $13.88/hour, home health workers are getting paid between $8.00-11.00/hour. In order for PCS workers to receive $15.00/hour, the PCS rate would need to be increased by $2.00-5.00/hour.
#3: It is in our best interest as a public for HHAs and LTCFs to continue to accept Medicaid recipients.
What if HHA and LTCF refused to accept Medicaid recipients because the reimbursement rates are simply too low?
With the number of people dependent on Medicaid, if HHAs and LTCFs refused Medicaid recipients, our elderly and disabled would suffer.
Perhaps the average length of life would decrease. Perhaps we would implement legal euthanasia. Perhaps the suicide rate would increase. Perhaps the homelessness percentage would reach an all-time high. Is this the world in which you want to live?? Is this the world in which you want to age??
In my opinion, the way we treat our elderly, disabled and needy population is a direct reflection on the level of civilization or educated sophistication.
Here is an excerpt of an article published in 2013 when China passed its new Elderly Rights Law:
“Korea: Celebrating old age
Not only do Koreans respect the elderly, but they also celebrate them. For Koreans, the 60th and 70th birthdays are prominent life events, which are commemorated with large-scale family parties and feasts. As in Chinese culture, the universal expectation in Korea is that roles reverse once parents age, and that it is an adult child’s duty — and an honorable one at that — to care for his or her parents.
…
The U.S. and U.K.: Protestantism at play
Western cultures tend to be youth-centric, emphasizing attributes like individualism and independence. This relates back to the Protestant work ethic, which ties an individual’s value to his or her ability to work — something that diminishes in old age. Anthropologist Jared Diamond, who has studied the treatment of the elderly across cultures, has said the geriatric in countries like the U.K. and U.S. live “lonely lives separated from their children and lifelong friends.” As their health deteriorates, the elderly in these cultures often move to retirement communities, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes.”
#4: It is in our best interest as a public for HHAs and LTCFs to stay in business.
Or we can become more like the Koreans. At least, in this one respect, would emulating the Korean attitude be so bad?
Conclusion
Obviously, we cannot shift the American attitude toward the elderly, disabled and needy within one generation.
But we CAN increase the PCS reimbursement rate.
Here, the forefront was not as effective as needed. Maybe there is a need for a “backend” act of litigation…
“The Times They Are a-Changin’”: A Look at Possible Ramifications on Medicaid by Senate Bill 744
I think of Bob Dylan’s raspy voice singing:
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the presidency during a time of severe poverty. The Great Depression, which would last until the late 1930s or early 1940s, cast shadows and doubt over the future of America. People were starving. Unemployment and homelessness were at an all-time high.
FDR’s first 100 days in office were monumental. In fact, FDR’s first 100 days in office changed America forever. With bold legislation and a myriad of executive orders, he instituted the New Deal. The New Deal created government jobs for the homeless, banking reform, and emergency relief to states and cities. During those 100 days of lawmaking, Congress granted every major request Roosevelt asked. This is an example of what I call blending of the separation of powers. In a time of great national need, Congress took an expansive view of the president’s constitutional powers and cooperated with him to effect major change.
I am in no way comparing our General Assembly to Congress back in the 1930s nor am I comparing FDR to Gov. McCrory. In fact, there are vast differences. I am only making the point that rarely does the legislative body create such change.
But North Carolina’s current Senate Bill 744 may create this change. For example, if Senate Bill 744 passes the House, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Division of Medical Assistance (DMA) may no longer manage Medicaid. That’s right. A whole new state agency may manage Medicaid.
This past Friday, May 30, 2014, the state Senate passed a $21.2 billion budget, which is known as Senate Bill 744. On May 31, 2014, Senate Bill 744 passed its 3rd reading and will now go on to the House. So far, it has been revised 3 times, so we do not know whether the House will make substantial changes. But, as it stands today, it is shocking. Is it good? Bad? I don’t think we can know whether the changes are good or bad yet, and, quite honestly, I have not had time to digest all of the possible implications of Senate Bill 744. But, regardless, the changes are shocking.
Of the most shocking changes (should SB 744 get passed), consider the following:
1. DHHS must immediately cease all efforts to transition Medicaid to the affordable care organizations (ACOs) system that DHHS had touted would be in effect by July 2015;
2. DHHS’s DMA will no longer manage Medicaid. Instead, a new state entity will be formed to manage Medicaid. (A kind of…”scratch it all and start over” method);
3. All funds previously appropriated to DMA will be transferred to the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) and will be used for Medicaid reform and may not be used for any other purpose such as funding any shortfalls in the Medicaid program.
4. Categorical coverage for recipients of the optional state supplemental program State County Special Assistance is eliminated.
5. Coverage for the medically needy is eliminated, except those categories that the State is prohibited from eliminating by the “maintenance of effort” requirement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Effective October 1, 2019, coverage for all medically needy categories is eliminated.
6. It is the intent of the General Assembly to reduce optional coverage for certain aged, blind, and disabled persons effective July 1, 2015, while meeting the State’s obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the United States Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581 (1999).
7. Repeal the shared savings program and just reduce the reimbursement rates by 3%.
8. DHHS shall implement a Medicaid assessment program for local management entities/managed care organizations (LME/MCOs) at a rate of three and one-half percent (3.5%).
9. For additional notices as to State Plan Amendments (SPAs), DHHS must post the proposed SPAs on its website at least 10 days prior to submitting the SPAs to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
10. Reimbursement rate changes become effective when CMS approves the reimbursement rate changes.
11. The Department of Health and Human Services shall not enter into any contract involving the program integrity functions listed in subsection (a) of this section of SB 774 that would have a termination date after September 1, 2015.
12. The Medicaid PROVIDER will have the burden of proof in contested case actions against the Department.
13. The Department shall withhold payment to any Medicaid provider for whom the DMA, or its vendor, has identified an overpayment in a written notice to the provider. Withholding shall begin on the 75th day after the day the notice of overpayment is mailed and shall continue during the pendency of any appeal until the overpayment becomes a final overpayment (can we say injunction?).
Senate Bill 744 purports to make immense modifications to our Medicaid system. I wonder what Gov. McCrory and Secretary Wos think about Senate Bill 744. If SB 744 passes, McCrory and Wos can no longer continue down the ACO path. Does the General Assembly even have the authority to bind their hands from creating ACOs? It seems so.
As for the “new state agency” that will manage Medicaid, maybe the General Assembly is right and we do need to scratch out the current Medicaid management and start over…I doubt anyone would disagree that DHHS has had some “oops” moments in the past year or so. But (a) is this the way to start all over; and (b) does the General Assembly have the legal power to remove the management of Medicaid from Secretary Wos?
Going to the reduction of optional services for the “medically needy,” what services are considered optional? Here is a list of optional services, as defined by the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS):
• Case Management
• Mental Health
• Podiatry
• Intermediate Care Facilities (ICF-MR)
• Personal Care Services
• Prosthetics
• Respiratory Therapy
• Hospice
• Adult Dentures
• Prescription Drugs
• Community Alternative Programs (CAP)
• Private Duty Nursing
• Chiropractor
• Home Infusion Therapy
• Physical Therapy/Speech Therapy
• Transportation
I cannot comment on all the changes proposed by Senate Bill 744; I simply have not had enough time to review them in detail, because there are so many changes. I do not purport to know whether these modifications are ultimately for the good or for the bad.
All I know is that we better start swimming or we will sink like a stone, because the times they are a-changin’.
