Fierce Health Finance quoted Deborah Bachrach, a partner in the firm's Healthcare practice, in an article about how Virginia is investigating alternatives to obtain and use federal funding under the Affordable Care Act.
Virginia, one of twenty states yet to expand Medicaid eligibility under the ACA, has organized a workgroup that will explore "provider assessments," a twist on hospital bed taxes, whose revenues could be used to obtain additional matching Medicaid payments from the federal government. While California, an expansion state, has used this bed tax to draw down hundreds of millions of dollars in matching funds, Bachrach suggested that fees could also be used to fund increases in payments to physicians and other providers.
"It's been a long time since we've increased fees to doctors. It's been a long time since we've increased certain inpatient rates," said Bachrach. "The nonfederal share could be used to increase rates of payments to providers."