Capitol Correspondence - 05.21.18

ANCOR Submits Comments to Access Rule

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In November 2017, CMS Administrator Verma previewed two major rules that would be revisited by the agency: the Managed Long Term Services and Supports Rules originally issued in 2015 (ANCOR expects these out in the summer of 2018) and the Access Rule regulations also originally issued in 2015.  The Access Rule regulations were meant to give substance to the Medicaid statute’s “equal access provision” which spoke to the accountability of states to ensure that beneficiaries have fair access to programs including in rate setting, etc.  ANCOR lobbied to have HCBS programs included in the access monitoring that resulted in the rules, but ultimately very narrow medical services were included in the 2015 reporting requirements.  This March, after hearing from many state governments that the reporting requirements were burdensome, Administrator Verma previewed new rules that would exempt states with a heavy managed care presence from having to submit access rule reporting. Further, states would be able to avoid reporting if rate changes were below a certain percentage.  ANCOR weighed in with CMS in these brief comments, urging rather than pulling back on the provision to expand it to cover HCBS, and also shared its Access and Adequacy report on how HCBS access can be measured.  If you would like to submit any comments by the deadline tomorrow of May 22, 2018 (they can be one or two sentences or a formal document) please comment here.