When association health plans and short-term plans federal rules are fully phased in, about 4 million people will choose an association health plan and another 2 are predicted to be in a short-term plan of 12-months duration.
CMS announced that will be heightening audits to “confirm that Medicaid beneficiaries are correctly identified as expansion or pre-expansion enrollees”. States receive higher federal match rates of around 90% for expansion enrollees, while the match rate can be as low as 50% for pre-expansion enrollees.
Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai recently requested an increase in the annual funding cap for the Rural Health Care Program by $171 million. The Rural Health Care Program funds the essential technical infrastructure for telecommunications companies to work with rural healthcare providers and their telehealth efforts and the transmission of electronic health records in rural America.
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) announced that they will be increasing the funding cap of the Rural Health Care Program from $400 million by $171 million to $571 million.
June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month click here to learn more and see what Georgia is doing to fight against this disease.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that premiums for benchmark plans will rise about 7% a year between 2019 and 2028. This is coupled with the 15% estimated rise to take place from 2018-2019. Because of this the CBO is also estimating that an additional 6 million people will join association health plans and short term health plans in the next 5 years
As of April 1st, Piedmont Health became out-of-network with the largest insurance company in the state of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield
According to the Wall Street Journal, Walmart is in preliminary talks to buy the insurer Humana.
Last Thursday, The Georgia Senate passed a bill that aimed at helping rural hospitals that are struggling to stay open. According to WABE, the bill includes provisions to allow “micro-hospitals” in rural counties. Micro-hospitals are are a 24/7, small-scale inpatient facility with up to ten inpatient beds used for observation and short-stay use.
Legislative Day 35
It’s been a busy week at the State Capitol with many twist and turns as we see the legislative session
and term make its way to the end. We’ve seen many bills placed on other bills and an attempt to get
them passed this year. We will be on high alert in the remaining days. Please watch for alerts as we
close out the session.