“A win for long-term care: Providers applaud withdrawal of MFAR proposal,” by Danielle Brown, McKnight’s LTC News

Quote:

“Providers cheered federal health officials’ decision to withdraw a proposal they warned could cut up to $50 billion nationwide from the Medicaid program annually. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Monday that it’s rescinding the proposed Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule (MFAR). CMS Administrator Seema Verma in a tweet said the agency ‘listened closely to concerns that have been raised by our state and provider partners about potential unintended consequences of the proposed rule, which require further study. Therefore, CMS is withdrawing the rule from the regulatory agenda.’”

 

 

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

Just as Medicaid planning attorneys manipulate the rules to qualify their affluent clients for welfare-financed LTC, so also do states use all kinds of financial shenanigans to maximize their Medicaid matching funds slyly. The proposed CMS rule would not have stopped this practice of Medicaid planning writ large, but it would have reduced it somewhat. Now not even that is going to happen.