Trump administration seeks to drop rule that aims to ensure there are enough doctors to treat Medicaid patients - Entrepreneur Generations

The Trump administration wants to kill a 2016 rule meant to ensure there are enough doctors to treat Medicaid patients. Medicaid covers about one in five American citizens and nearly one in four rural non-senior citizens.

"State health officials say the rule, which requires states to monitor whether Medicaid reimbursement rates are high enough to keep doctors in the program, forces them to spend a lot of time collecting and analyzing data with little benefit," Michael Ollove reports for Stateline. "Health care advocates, though, fear that dropping the regulation would enable states to set those payments at a level that would cause some of the 72 million Americans who rely on Medicaid to scramble for health care. Research shows that when reimbursement rates drop, fewer providers agree to accept low-income Medicaid patients."

Advocates of the proposal say the Obama-era rule, called the Medicaid Access Rule, hasn't improved patient access and is a bureaucratic bother. Opponents say the rule hasn't been in place long enough and needs more time for effects to be visible, Ollove reports.

"CMS last year called for a significant watering down of the Obama rule. Last month, the agency proposed to scrap it altogether. The comment period on elimination of the rule runs through next month, after which CMS will announce its decision," Ollove reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2zlZ15h Trump administration seeks to drop rule that aims to ensure there are enough doctors to treat Medicaid patients - Entrepreneur Generations

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