Friday, February 14, 2014

NY State reaches deal for $8 billion Medicaid waiver

02.14.2014


The Cuomo administration announced today it had reached an agreement in principle with the federal government on an $8 billion Medicaid waiver, $2 billion less than the state originally sought.
Earlier Thursday, State Health department commissioner Nirav Shah told the state’s public health and health planning council that the state would settle for no less than the full amount they’d requested.
“On the waiver, stay tuned,” Shah told the Council, saying the state’s application was in the “home stretch.”
“It’s $10 billion and we’re sticking to that number,” Shah said. “We’re not settling for less.”
It was not immediately clear what part of the $10 billion application had been stricken from the handshake agreement.
“It’s not everything New York asked for, but it is a generous amount,” said U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer in an emailed statement. “This large amount of money should help all of New York – both Upstate and Downstate -- with both its budgetary challenges and hospital needs,” Schumer said.
“Over the last several months we have worked with dedicated leaders in New York on a waiver agreement that represents a significant commitment to improve care delivery in Medicaid that will result in better health outcomes for patients and lower health care costs for the program,” said Emma Sandoe, a spokeswoman for the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in an emailed statement. “Today we are pleased to have notified the state that we have reached an agreement in principle. We are encouraged that this agreement is entering the final stages of approval, and we look forward to continuing work with the State to achieve meaningful delivery system reform in New York,” she said.
C.M.S. officials cautioned that the waiver had not yet been approved, saying the agreement is an important step in that process, which would be finalized in the coming weeks. C.M.S. made clear that this money is not a blank check - that New York will have to achieve specific milestones in order to receive the funding over the five-year period.
The Daily News reported the waiver can be used to support three struggling Brooklyn hospitals: Brookdale Hospital, Interfaith Medical Center, and Wyckoff Hospital, although the Cuomo administration did not say in a release which hospitals would receive funds from the waiver, which will disburse money over a five-year term.
Long Island College Hospital, another financially struggling Brooklyn institution, was conspicuously absent from the Daily News' list of hospitals that would benefit from the grant, which the state first applied for more than 18 months ago.
The state was asked to resubmit parts of its application in December last year, after federal officials ruled money couldn’t be used for capital expenses of healthcare institutions, technology, or supportive housing costs, which federal sources said contributed to the delay in approving the application.
Earlier Thursday, Cuomo had also threatened that if the state didn’t receive the $10 billion waiver, it would “endanger the operation of our health exchange,” explicitly threatening that federal government’s failure to approve the funding would jeopardize one of the most successful exchanges in the country.
The exchange and the waiver are funded separately, through streams of money completely independent of one another.
“The governor may have misspoken” when he tied the two together, wrote Michele McEvoy, a spokeswoman for the New York State Health Foundation, in an email on behalf of the foundation’s Senior Vice President David Sandman.

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