Report Raises Questions About Whether Eligible Adults, Children Are Being Wrongly Dropped From Medicaid
The Families USA report suggests that onerous eligibility redetermination processes are at least as big a threat to poor people's coverage as those other measures.
Modern Healthcare:
Faulty State Renewal Processes Blamed For Medicaid Coverage Declines
Burdensome state eligibility redetermination processes have pushed down Medicaid enrollment in a number of states, raising questions about whether eligible adults and children are being wrongly dropped from coverage, according to a new report. Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program dipped last year by about 1.6 million, including 744,000 children, according to the report by the liberal advocacy group Families USA. (Meyer, 4/19)
Texas Tribune:
Texas Takes Thousands Of Kids Off Medicaid Monthly Due To Red Tape, Data Shows
Most states check whether children still qualify for Medicaid once a year, when it's time for them to reenroll. In Texas, the HHSC uses an automated system to detect income changes in households with children on Medicaid several times a year. That's led to thousands of kids being abruptly kicked off the program – and data shows that many of those removals were in error. (Byrne, 4/22)
And in news from CMS —
Modern Healthcare:
CMS Proposes $887 Million Boost To SNFs
The CMS on Friday proposed increasing payments to skilled nursing facilities by $887 million, or 2.5%, in federal fiscal 2020, as the agency hopes to align their pay with value-based care. The agency said in a notice that it will use a new case-mix model starting in October. The model will focus Medicare payments based on the patient's condition and resulting care rather than the amount of care provided. (King, 4/19)
Modern Healthcare:
HHS Extends Comment Period For Interoperability Rules
HHS has extended the comment period for two proposed interoperability rules, the agency announced Friday morning. The CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology released their long-awaited interoperability and data-blocking proposals in February. The proposals outline how regulators will require providers and insurers to share medical data with patients, such as through application programming interfaces that connect electronic health records systems with third-party apps. (Cohen, 4/19)
