Manatt Health partner Anne Karl spoke with FierceHealthcare and Inside Health Policy about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ recent decision to withdraw the Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Regulation (MFAR), which would have stopped states from manipulating Medicaid supplemental payments in order to obtain extra federal matching funds. In the articles, Karl discussed the large pushback that the rule faced due to the large impact that MFAR would have had on state financing and payment policies, as well as MFAR’s potential to significantly reduce beneficiary access to care. In FierceHealthcare, Karl noted that “rather than just addressing some targeted concerns, the proposed rule was really sweeping. It touched on almost every element of Medicaid financing. I think that’s why you saw such tremendous pushback as people started to grapple with potential implications of this rule."
In addition to Karl’s comments, the financial impact estimate that Manatt Health prepared for the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) comments on MFAR was referenced in The Wall Street Journal, Modern Healthcare, Healthcare Dive and by the AHA.