DOH Seeks to Return All to the Medicaid Lag
The Department of Health (DOH) has notified Medicaid providers that in line with an administrative provision included in the recently enacted State Budget, DOH is returning providers and Managed Care plans that are not currently subject to the two-week Medicaid payment lag back to the lag. To accomplish this, those being returned to the lag will not receive a Medicaid payment during the weeks of June 16th and July 14th. The Dear Administrator Letter (DAL) describing the process is available here. A list of Medicaid provider numbers of impacted organizations can be downloaded here. Member organizations not currently subject to the lag are encouraged to review the listing and become familiar with the terms of the DAL.
The DAL stresses that the purpose of suspending the lag was to help individual organizations with short-term cash flow relief and thus was considered a temporary accommodation.
While DOH has signaled that it has little flexibility in this area, members who would face significant financial difficulty due to the change are asked to contact us. The Budget scorecard indicated that the State would be returning "non-distressed" providers to the lag. Although only a small number of members are currently off the lag, the expectation reflected in the State spending plan is to return a sufficient number of Medicaid organizations to the two-week payment delay to achieve a State "savings" of $75 million.
LeadingAge NY Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841