Per today’s N&O, it appears Medicaid service providers in NC can expect another reduction in reimbursement rates:
In the current state budget, Perdue and the legislature agreed that Medicaid reimbursement rates would be reduced by $26.6 million or 1.35 percent, if the state found it necessary to close a gap in federal Medicaid funding.
Perdue’s office says the cut is now necessary. The doctors say the state has access to plenty of federal money and could use a $300 million federal education windfall to avoid cutting the rates.
Reducing reimbursement rates to Medicaid has become fairly common practice for state budget writers. Over the past decade, these rates have been reduced several times. The result, in part, is that fewer doctors and hospitals accept Medicaid patients because they simply can not afford to treat Medicaid patients anymore at such low reimbursement rates. In an article I wrote nearly two years ago, I noted that in NC the number of physicians enrolled as Medicaid providers dropped by 23 percent, and the number of hospitals catering to Medicaid enrollees dropped by an even steeper 63 percent, from 2001 through 2006. At the same time, Medicaid enrollment grew by 28 percent.
The result? More patients chasing fewer doctors, creating longer wait times.
This trend should be especially troubling in light of Obamacare, which will funnel even more people into the Medicaid system as the number of providers continues to shrink.
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