Providers Warn Mass. Gov. That Plan To Cut Medicaid May Affect Home Health Services
Home health agencies say the governor's plan to rein in Medicaid spending with a trim in reimbursements would mean that they would stop sending nurses to homes to check on patients with chronic illnesses and that would shift more people into long-term care facilities. Also, news outlets report on Medicaid developments in Kansas and New Jersey.
Boston Globe:
Medicaid Cut Could Scale Back Nurses’ Visits To Patients’ Homes
The Baker administration wants to cut how much the state pays for long-term home nursing care, a move to contain medical spending. But that may leave thousands of patients without the services they need, home health agencies warn. Leaders of several agencies said the proposed 25 percent rate cut would make it unaffordable for them to continue sending nurses to the homes of people with complex, chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and schizophrenia. Patients may lose access to nursing services at home, and they could end up in nursing homes, the agencies said. (Dayla McCluskey, 2/12)
KCUR (Kansas City, Mo., Public Radio):
KanCare Expansion Opponents Urge Lawmakers To Learn From Other States’ Mistakes
The message delivered to a legislative committee Thursday by opponents of expanding Medicaid eligibility in Kansas boiled down to this: Expansion has been a disaster in the states that have enacted it, so don’t do it. Gregg Pfister, legislative relations director for the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, ticked through a list of expansion states where costs and enrollment significantly exceeded projections. (McLean, 2/10)
NJ Spotlight:
Audit Confirms What Patients Have Long Said: Medicaid Doctors Hard To Find
Advocates for low-income patients have long insisted that medical care is harder to find than it looks on paper. A recent state audit seems to have proved them right, identifying numerous inaccuracies on lists of Medicaid providers that insurance companies have submitted to regulators and posted online for policy holders. In reviewing filings from recent years, State Auditor Stephen Eells — whose office is part of the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services — discovered hundreds of situations where doctors, dentists and other specialists were not practicing at the locations listed in insurance materials provided to the state or available to patients. (Stainton, 2/13)
