CMS Urged to Withdraw Proposed Rule on Medicaid Access to Care

In comments submitted yesterday, AHA strongly urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to withdraw a proposed rule that would exempt states with high Medicaid managed care enrollment or that propose “nominal” rate reductions from requirements to assess whether their Medicaid fee-for-service rates are sufficient to ensure beneficiary access to covered services. “The AHA urges CMS to withdraw these proposed changes, as they would put beneficiary access to care at risk by removing an important oversight function,” the association said. “While the AHA shares CMS’s goal of reducing the regulatory burden on the health care system, we must selectively target burden that is duplicative, provides no value, or does harm. These regulatory requirements, which protect beneficiary access to care, do not meet these criteria.”