New State Budget Takes Several Steps to Help Patients and Promote Stability for New York’s Healthcare System
Colleagues:
The new State Budget, which was enacted this week, includes several steps to help patients and promote stability for New York’s healthcare system. That’s good news for us as physicians and for our patients. MSSNY issued a statement applauding the Governor and Legislature for the many positive items in the Budget that enhance the ability of our patients to receive the care they need and promote greater stability in our State’s struggling community health care infrastructure.
Importantly, the State Budget provides targeted increases to woefully inadequate Medicaid payment rates, establishes a “guarantee fund” to pay health care claims in the event of a health insurer insolvency, requires health insurers to use appropriately trained specialists to protect against arbitrary health insurer service authorization denials that have been appealed, continues the essential Committee for Physicians’ Health to help promote physician wellness, and extends for another policy year the Excess Medical Malpractice Insurance Program that helps to offset the staggering costs of liability insurance in New York.
We also appreciate the fact that the final Budget did not include several concerning items that would have jeopardized patient safety. Significantly, the Budget ensures that the patient’s physician, not a state bureaucrat, maintains the final say on prescriptions written for patients covered by Medicaid. And we’re grateful that the final Budget did not include several provisions that sought to eliminate the important oversight a trained physician can have in overseeing a patient’s care. Patients are best served by a team-based approach to our patients’ care with a skilled physician overseeing the care, rather than facilitating “silos” in our health care system.
Some of you—my physician colleagues—have expressed concerns about requirements in the final Budget that certain mergers or acquisitions of physician practices be reported to the State Health Department. I, alongside my fellow leaders and MSSNY staff, will work with state officials to ensure that these new requirements strike a fair balance between the desire of the State to monitor these transactions with the need for medical practices to be truly able to work with partners that will enhance care quality and provide needed capital resources to help keep these struggling practices afloat to deliver essential patient care.
Paul A. Pipia, MD
President
