Issue brief: Medicaid spending growth, payment rates relatively low 

Any effort to reform Medicaid financing should take into account evidence that the program already has low payment rates and low spending growth, meaning further reductions could hurt beneficiaries’ access to care, according to an issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation.Medicaid spending continues to be a hot-button issue, given overall concerns about federal and state budgets, the brief says. So to get a full picture of trends in Medicaid spending, KFF examines 40 separate studies on the subject.Some of the research, the brief says, shows that after adjusting for Medicaid enrollees’ greater health needs, per capita spending in Medicaid is lower than that of private insurers. This difference, according to one study, can be attributed to lower provider payment rates in the Medicaid program.

Source: Issue brief: Medicaid spending growth, payment rates relatively low – FierceHealthPayer

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