AAHP Praises Medicaid Patient Protection Regulation

NU Online News Service, June 14, 5:33 p.m. – The American Association of Health Plans, Washington, is supporting the new, revised Medicaid patient protection regulation published today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

An draft released a year ago “contained a variety of unnecessarily onerous requirements,” but the new version is much better and ought to keep Medicaid managed care payment rates actuarially sound, Karen Ignagni, AAHP’s president, says in the statement.

Congress called for HHS to develop the regulation in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Forty percent of Medicaid beneficiaries fall outside the scope of the regulation because they are still enrolled in Medicaid fee-for-service programs, but the regulation will affect 22 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicaid managed care programs.