Medicaid
Déjà vu at Medicaid Council meeting
Friday’s Medicaid Council meeting focused on the controversialPCMH+ shared savings program reminding many observers of years of rosy DSS presentations about the very similar, failed HUSKY MCO program. PCMH+ started six months ago with 137,000 members. The concept is to give Accountable Care Organizations (large health systems) a reason to lower the total cost of…
Read MoreAdvocates document concerns with PCMH+ implementation
The Medicaid Study Group, a coalition of independent consumer advocates, have published an update on CT Medicaid’s new payment reform experiment, PCMH+, fact sheet and report. The program started January 1st with 137,037 members. Under the new shared saving payment model, large health systems (called ACOs in other states and programs), get half the health care savings…
Read MoreReport estimates AHCA would cut $5.9 billion in Medicaid funds to CT
Connecticut would lose $5.9 billion in Medicaid funding from 2019 to 2028 under the American Health Care Act passed by the House last month, according to a new report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Connecticut would likely not be in a position to fill that funding gap with state funds.…
Read MoreNew data finds CT leads nation in lowering Medicaid costs
New data from CMS actuaries finds that Medicaid per capita health care spending dropped 5.7% from 2010 to 2014, better than any other state. Of note, in 2012 CT Medicaid shifted away from capitated managed care organizations to run Medicaid. Unfortunately, the rest of the CT’s market is not performing as well as Medicaid –…
Read MoreMedicaid update – administrative conversion drives up call wait times
Friday’s Medicaid oversight council meeting focused on DSS’s conversion to ImpactCT, a new IT system to handle eligibility and enrollment. The hope is that moving more administrative functions online will streamline the process and reduce errors. Unfortunately, implementing the system is pulling staff away from their desks for 9 days of training, causing a sharp…
Read MorePresident’s budget proposal includes large cuts to state Medicaid funding, among other health programs
President Trump’s FY 2018 budget proposalincludes $610 billion in mandatory savings over the next decade by instituting state Medicaid block grants or per capita caps starting in FY 2020. This goes beyond cuts included in the American Health Care Act passed by the House of Representatives three weeks ago, that is estimated to cost Connecticut…
Read MoreRegional state policymakers urge Congress to preserve successful state-federal Medicaid partnership
Yesterday, the Council of State Governments’ Eastern Regional Conference (CSG/ERC) sent a letter calling on Congressional leaders to protect and support the 50-year, successful state-federal Medicaid partnership. CSG/ERC is comprised of state policymaker members from eleven Northeastern states from Maine to Maryland as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and five eastern Canadian…
Read MoreCourant Op-Ed: Plan to ‘Fix’ State Medicaid Program Flawed
From Saturday’s Hartford Courant, “These are lean times and we need our government to be smart about where it puts its resources. We don’t need our limited taxpayer dollars spent “fixing” things in our Medicaid program that aren’t broken.” The article points out the state’s backward plan, PCMH +, to apply a risky experiment, meant to slow…
Read MoreMedicaid Council update – PCMH + and national Medicaid proposals
Friday’s MAPOC meeting started with an update about the shared savings experiment that covers 137,037 members and started January 1st. Contracts have been finalized with nine ACOs. enrollment % of total NEMG/Yale 7,509 5.5% St. Vincent’s 18,086 13.2% Fairhaven HC 7,811 5.7% Cornell Scott-Hill HC 13,781 10.1% Generations Family HC 8,000 5.8% Southwest CHC…
Read MoreCT seventh in nation in Medicaid payments for opioid addiction treatment
While the opioid epidemic impacts all income levels, Medicaid is the largest source of behavioral health care and opioid addiction treatment. However that rate varies considerably by state, according to an analysis by STAT News. Connecticut Medicaid pays for 44.3% of opioid agonist (buprenorphine) prescriptions compared to the national average of 24.2%. Connecticut is just…
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