Medicaid physician pay boost stalled by delay in federal regs

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Physician Pay Boost Stalled
No states appear to have implemented a temporary Medicaid physician pay boost more than eight weeks after it was supposed to have gone into effect, according to provider groups tracking the issue. The highly anticipated move boosting 2013-14 pay for Medicaid primary-care services provided by physicians to Medicare payment levels was required to go into effect Jan. 1, according to provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But delayed federal rules implementing the pay hike have pushed back the logistical process that will provide the funds to those physicians. "It's going very, very slow but states are not doing the things they need to do," said Neil Kirschner, a senior associate for the American College of Physicians (Daly, 2/26).