Introduction Rising prescription drug costs continue to plague state budgets. As states have expanded Medicaid, their enrollments have risen, as has their spending on Medicaid prescription drug benefits. Regardless of whether a state has expanded Medicaid per the Affordable Care Act (ACA), states are currently facing...
Government healthcare reforms along with reducing prescription drug prices have been at the top of President Donald Trump’s agenda. A feud between the top health officials at HHS is delaying the administration’s healthcare initiatives. Over the past year, tensions have been building between HHS Secretary Alex...
To reduce costs in its Medicaid Health Plan (MHP), Michigan is carving out pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and transitioning to a fee for service (FFS) model for the delivery of prescription drugs. In October, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) announced that outpatient...
Over the past ten years, Medicaid has become one of the fastest and largest growing items on state budgets. In 2015, the program accounted for 20 percent of state budget spending and in 2018 it had grown to 30 percent. Last month, a report from...
Since Medicaid’s inception in 1965, the program has expanded to become the largest provider of healthcare coverage in the country. As the member population size has grown, Medicaid third party liability (TPL) efforts and fiscal responsibility have been reoccurring issues. To protect Medicaid’s solvency, there...
Identifying third party liability continues to be a challenge under the coordination of benefits for Medicaid plans. By law, plans are payers of last resort so whenever beneficiaries have other active coverage (OHI), those third parties should pay first. Currently, Medicaid plans are required to...
California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, signed an executive order at the beginning of the year to move all pharmacy services for Medi-Cal from managed care to a FFS model. The consolidated purchasing power would leverage the state’s population size to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical...
DHHS has released its annual Agency Financial Report for FY 2018. The report provides an overview of improper payments in the Medicaid program, root causes for the payments, and corrective actions. In line with the agency's goal of reforming, strengthening, and modernizing the nation’s healthcare...
In January, California’s newly elected Governor, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to drastically reform health care in the state. Executive Order N-01-19 introduced a number of actions and budget proposals to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and health care. One measure, in...
In addition to rising health care costs and increased spending from the program’s expansion, Medicaid is losing billions of dollars a year from improper payments. Protecting the integrity of the Medicaid program has become a top priority for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...