It remains unclear whether Texas will receive federal approval to increase Medicaid payments to primary care physicians under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a report from The Texas Tribune.
The pay raise was supposed to take effect in January but has been postponed in Texas and several other states because the federal government has not yet approved their proposed strategies for increasing reimbursements, Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, told The Texas Tribune. Texas received approval for its pay-boosting strategy for the fee-for-service system but is still waiting for feedback on its approach to managed care rates, according to the report.
CMS told the Tribune it's working quickly to review the state's methodology. Texas didn't submit its proposed plan for managed care until late July, nearly three months after the official deadline, according to the report. Ms. Goodman told the Tribune the state missed the deadline because CMS didn't release its final rate increase process regulations until November 2012.
Once it receives federal approval for the managed care pay increase strategy, the state will retroactively pay primary care physicians for Medicaid billings filed since January, according to the report.
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