Post by pavel on Apr 11, 2016 23:20:59 GMT -6
Worried and outraged health care providers filled a conference room in Lawton last week to hear how the state plans to keep from slashing Medicaid reimbursements.
Nico Gomez, chief executive officer of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, had a plan in hand but no assurances that it would be accepted.
The authority, which administers the Medicaid system in Oklahoma, cut reimbursement rates 7 percent earlier this year. Then in March it announced it was starting the process of implementing a 25 percent cut to be effective when the new fiscal year begins July 1.
Gomez said no one in any part of state government knows what their budgets will be for the next year, but public hearing requirements forced the authority to act quickly. So the authority estimated its appropriations would be cut by 15 percent, leaving a $100 million hole. To make up that large a deficit, he said, would require a 25 percent reduction in reimbursements to providers because reducing state spending on Medicaid would also reduce the federal reimbursement the state receives.
Read more: www.swoknews.com/area/plan-save-medicaid-outlined
Nico Gomez, chief executive officer of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, had a plan in hand but no assurances that it would be accepted.
The authority, which administers the Medicaid system in Oklahoma, cut reimbursement rates 7 percent earlier this year. Then in March it announced it was starting the process of implementing a 25 percent cut to be effective when the new fiscal year begins July 1.
Gomez said no one in any part of state government knows what their budgets will be for the next year, but public hearing requirements forced the authority to act quickly. So the authority estimated its appropriations would be cut by 15 percent, leaving a $100 million hole. To make up that large a deficit, he said, would require a 25 percent reduction in reimbursements to providers because reducing state spending on Medicaid would also reduce the federal reimbursement the state receives.
Read more: www.swoknews.com/area/plan-save-medicaid-outlined