State Medicaid Cuts – Texas

Texas may cut Medicaid reimbursements to healthcare providers, By Darren Barbee, November 20, 2011, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “Therapy and physician groups in Texas are alarmed about proposed cuts in government healthcare reimbursement rates that they say would hurt the sickest and poorest Texas patients, most of them children. Therapists stand to lose millions of dollars as Medicaid reimbursement rates for their services are slashed. The average reduction for home health providers, for example, would be 35 percent. All told, the state plan calls for cutting $150 million a year for therapists; that is 19 percent of the $792 million they received last year. The state would save millions more with cuts in co-payments to physicians for people covered by both Medicaid and Medicare. But doctors say the proposed change will further push doctors from wanting to practice in less affluent parts of the state…”