SNAPShots
SNAPShotsArchive for Medicaid supplemental payments
SNAP Joins Letter Urging Preservation of Tobacco Funding
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania has joined 10 other organizations in urging Pennsylvania’s General Assembly to use 100 percent of Tobacco Settlement Fund monies for health-related services and programs in the coming fiscal year. For FY 2018-2019, Pennsylvania borrowed against future proceeds from the Tobacco Settlement Fund to help balance the state budget. Debt service payments will soon be due and the Wolf administration has proposed paying that debt service with proceeds from the state’s sales and use taxes. In a letter to state legislators, SNAP and the others endorse this aspect of the administration’s proposed budget FY 2019-2020 budget. Tobacco fund proceeds are vital to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, helping to compensate them for some of the care they provide … Read More
Senate Finance Committee Reports on Supplemental Medicaid Payments
The majority members of the Senate Finance Committee have published a report on supplemental Medicaid payments. According to the new document, This report seeks to increase educational understanding of Medicaid supplemental payments, as well as outline the reporting mechanisms for these payments to ensure adequate stewardship of taxpayer dollars. The report consists of descriptions of the different types of supplemental Medicaid payments that states make to some providers, including: Medicaid disproportionate share payments (Medicaid DSH) non-DSH payments upper-payment limit payments (UPL payments) demonstration supplemental payments medical education payments It also describes the magnitude of these payments, noting that supplemental Medicaid payments accounted for $50 billion of the $600 billion spent on Medicaid by the federal and state governments in 2016, … Read More
SNAP Asks Congress for Help on Medicaid DSH
Prevent Medicaid DSH cuts: that is the message the Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania conveyed to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation this week. In a message sent to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, SNAP asked members to sign onto a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking her to delay Affordable Care Act-mandated cuts in Medicaid disproportionate share payments (Medicaid DSH) that are scheduled to take effect in October of this year. If implemented, the cut would hurt 179 of Pennsylvania’s 213 hospitals, including all safety-net hospitals, and cost the state approximately $240 million in Medicaid DSH revenue in FY 2020 and $480 million a year in FYs 2021 through 2025. See the letter requesting action on Medicaid … Read More
MACPAC Recommends Changes in Medicaid Shortfall Definition
Hospitals’ calculation of their Medicaid shortfall would change under a recommendation that MACPAC voted to make to Congress. That change, in turn, could affect hospitals’ future Medicaid disproportionate share payments. Last week the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission voted overwhelmingly to change how hospitals calculate their Medicaid shortfall: the difference between what they spend caring for their Medicaid patients and what Medicaid pays them for that care. Under MACPAC’s proposal, hospitals would need to deduct from their shortfall total all third-party payments they receive for the care they provide to their Medicaid patients. If this proposal were to be adopted, it has the potential of changing Medicaid DSH allocations among the states and change the distribution of Medicaid … Read More
SNAP Endorses Governor’s Proposal for Paying for Tobacco Borrowing
Debt service on the state’s borrowing against future proceeds from the national master tobacco settlement agreement should be paid using state sales and use tax revenue, SNAP has declared in a new position statement. Last year the state borrowed $1.5 billion against future proceeds from the tobacco settlement. Some tobacco settlement money is used to help hospitals with the cost of uncompensated care they provide via tobacco uncompensated care payments and tobacco extraordinary expense payments made to hospitals that meet specific criteria: how much uncompensated care they provide, the proportion of their patients insured by Medicaid, and the proportion of low-income seniors they serve. All Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals qualify for these payments. Because the state’s borrowing against future tobacco settlement … Read More
MACPAC: Slow Medicaid DSH Cuts
Slow the pace of scheduled cuts in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH), the non-partisan agency that advises Congress and the administration will tell Congress in its next report of policy recommendations. The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission voted 16-1 recently to recommend to Congress that Medicaid DSH cuts, mandated by the Affordable Care Act but delayed three times by Congress, be reduced in size and spread out over a longer period of time. Currently, Medicaid DSH allotments to the states are scheduled to be reduced $4 billion in FY 2020 and then $8 billion a year in FY 2021 through FY 2025. MACPAC recommends that the cuts be reduced to $2 billion in FY 2020, $4 … Read More