Obama Proposes Third Year of Medicaid-Medicare Pay Parity

The White House wants to add 1 more year to a provision of the Affordable Care Act that raises Medicaid reimbursement to Medicare levels for evaluation and management services, and for vaccination administration performed by primary care physicians. The act authorized this parity in Medicaid-Medicare pay for 2013 and 2014 to entice more clinicians to accept Medicaid patients, whose number would grow by the millions under the law. The American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and other medical societies have lobbied Congress to extend the Medicaid pay hike, if not make it permanent. The president’s budget not only would continue Medicaid-Medicare parity into 2015 but also would apply it to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The cost, spread out over 10 years, would come to $5.4 billion. Washington Press, March 16, 2014