Medicaid

Advocates for poor, elderly and disabled individuals, who have been pressing the DeSantis administration to leverage the additional funding since spring, hailed the plan.

The Supreme Court will take up a legal battle about how much money Florida’s Medicaid program should be able to recoup from a legal settlement stemming from an accident left a girl in a vegetative state.

A Trump administration rule mandating that hospitals disclose true prices on their websites took effect this year. But compliance is spotty and even when figures are public, they are hard to find and understand.

Among the changes: “Wrap around” payments will go from a monthly back to a quarterly schedule and prior authorizations will resume for behavioral health services.

Medicaid, once considered the ugly duckling compared with the politically powerful and popular Medicare program, now covers nearly one in four Americans.

The state wants a 30-day extension to consider the effects of using added funds from the American Rescue Plan for home- and community-based services.

State Republican leaders have long rejected expanding eligibility for Medicaid, pointing in part to concerns about potential future costs.

An analysis of the Medicaid and CHIP programs shows that during the first eight months of the pandemic, there was a 34% dip in services obtained by people under age 19 and a 22% decrease by adults.

Advocates praised lawmakers' decision to beef up funding for the program, which helps developmentally disabled people select needed services, but worry about a shortage of providers unless there are pay increases, which wasn't part of the budget proposal.

The state learned this week that it will receive about $400 million in additional federal Medicaid funds, but lawmakers so far haven’t included it in a proposed budget they are trying to finalize.

Lawmakers have roughly three weeks to reach agreement on a budget, a period coinciding with an expected increase in Medicaid funding from the federal government.

A group of lawmakers in the state House of Representatives from both parties stood together and said they want to extend the 60 days of Medicaid coverage after birth.