In 2012, state Medicaid programs paid, on average, 59 percent of what Medicare paid for primary care services. Under the ACA, states had to raise Medicaid payment rates for primary care physicians for certain services to Medicare rate levels. Qualifying physicians saw an average 73 percent increase in primary care Medicaid payments under the fee bump.
Study author Sandra Decker, a senior fellow in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Division of Research and Modeling, investigated the association between the fee bump and physicians accepting new Medicaid patients.
Ms. Decker found about 65 percent of primary care physicians said they accepted new Medicaid patients in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, 67 percent of primary care physicians said they accepted new Medicaid patients.
Ms. Decker concluded that “the bump was not significantly associated with the overall acceptance rate or the percentages of primary care physicians’ patients on Medicaid.” She said the temporary nature of the fee bump may have affected physician participation.
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