According to a new survey of state budgets, primary care doctors treating Medicaid patients will soon see a significant pay increase in a number of states. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured recently asked the Urban Institute to perform the survey that revealed doctors and other Medicaid healthcare providers could see payment increases as large as 200%.
On the average, primary care physicians will see an increase of about 73% in Medicaid payments in 2013. The Kaiser report says that this increase is the largest single rate increase in the history of the program.
The payment increases begin in 2013 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and will take place over the next two years.
However, while physicians in many states will see significant increase to the Medicaid compensation rates, the states with the highest increases are also those that have been paying the lowest Medicaid compensation in the country up to this point. For example, in Rhode Island, a state that will see a 200% increase in compensation rates, Medicaid payments had been about one third of the compensation provided for similar treatments paid through Medicare.
While a handful of states will see very large increase in payments, about 11 states will have payment increases of less than 25%. North Carolina will see an increase of about 18%, while the smallest increases will take place in Delaware, Wyoming, and Montana, where physicians will see less than a 10% increase in compensation.
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