Medicaid

The Alliance for Site Neutral Payment Reform, along with the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, are pushing lawmakers to get rid of the exemptions to off-campus hospital facility site-neutral pay policies, and while some lobbyists don’t expect such policy shift would move on its own, they say there’s a possibility it could come up later in the year as a way to help pay for a larger health care package.

A bill that would add work requirements to Idaho’s voter-approved Medicaid expansion is on the desk of Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) after weeks of disagreement among state lawmakers over how the work requirements should function.

Community health centers in states that have expanded Medicaid are more financially stable and are more able to invest in behavioral-health services and value-based care more than are centers in states that have not expanded their programs, the Commonwealth Fund said in a survey released Thursday (April 4).

The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) will investigate whether CMS Administrator Seema Verma’s reported use of millions in taxpayer money to boost her public image through contracts awarded to Republican consultants violated federal regulations and ethics rules, according to a letter from the inspector general posted to Twitter Friday (April 5) by House Energy & Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ).

Details about the consequences of work requirements on those that don’t comply are a sticking point in the Idaho legislature’s effort to pass a scaled-back version of the state’s voter approved Medicaid expansion.

CMS is considering potential rulemaking to deal with so-called Duals-Special Needs Plan look-alikes, as the agency says stakeholders’ concerns have reinforced the idea that the proliferation of these plans impedes meaningfully integrated Medicare-Medicaid products.

Nebraska’s governor on Monday (April 1) unveiled a plan to delay the state’s voter-approved Medicaid expansion by more than a year and create two different tiers of coverage in the expansion population where beneficiaries would have to meet a work requirement to qualify for full Medicaid benefits.

A Gilead subsidiary asked to negotiate an agreement with Louisiana to protect the company from potential losses under the Medicaid best price rule that could stem from participating in the state’s innovative subscription model to provide hepatitis C drugs to its Medicaid and corrections populations, according to documents obtained by Inside Health Policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced Friday that the House will vote next week on a resolution (H. Res. 41) condemning the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act through the courts.