As NGA Convenes, National Long Term Care Leader Underscores Crucial Nature of Medicaid 'Provider Assessment' in Preserving Seniors' Access to Quality Nursing Home Care

AQNHC: As Governors Grapple With Medicaid Expansion, Federal Government Must Preserve States' Ability to Fund Existing Medicaid Commitments and Range of Federal Mandates

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the National Governors Association (NGA) convenes in Washington, D.C. today for its 2013 Winter Meeting, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care (AQNHC) underscored the crucial role so-called "provider assessments" play in ensuring states' ability to fully fund Medicaid. State Medicaid programs pay for the costs of two out of every three nursing home patients nationally.

"As Governors grapple with whether to expand Medicaid on the one hand, the federal government, on the other, should preserve states' ability to fund their existing Medicaid commitments as they already struggle to pay for necessary health care services of the poorest and most vulnerable senior citizens," said Alan G. Rosenbloom, President of the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, a coalition of 10 leading post-acute and long term care organizations providing skilled nursing facility (SNF) care in approximately 1,400 facilities, in 44 states nationwide. "Governors are already inundated by a wide range of federal mandates, and preserving provider assessments is essential to state budget stability as our economy moves slowly out of the deep recession."

According to Rosenbloom, data show that state Medicaid programs already underfund long term care services by an unprecedented $22 per patient, per day (Source: Eljay). "That's a funding shortfall of $6.3 billion in 2012," he added. "Limiting states' ability to employ 'provider assessments' in their Medicaid programs will undermine already seriously overburdened Medicaid programs."