Health care providers across Indiana will receive more money from Medicaid reimbursement after Governor Mike Pence Wednesday announced a rate increase.
Indiana cut the Medicaid reimbursement rate five percent in 2010, meaning hospitals, doctors and clinics got less money when seeing and treating Medicaid patients. The cuts were made as the state struggled with tighter budgets from the recession.
Indiana Hospital Association President Doug Leonard says the increase announced Wednesday restores part of the cut.
“So this is a reversal of two percent of that cut, or effectively saying the five percent is being reduced to three percent,” Leonard said.
Leonard says the 2010 cuts forced some hospitals to stop providing some services, notably obstetrical units in some rural hospitals. He says restoring some of the Medicaid reimbursement is important as health care providers continue to face cuts from other sources.
“$340 billion from Medicare for the ACA and now the sequester on top of that so any attempt to reverse some of those cuts in a positive sign,” Leonard said.
The governor’s office says the reimbursement rate increase is made possible through a higher Medicaid appropriation in the recently passed state budget.
