The state of Alaska has suspended Medicaid payments to hospitals and clinics amid a continuing budget impasse in the Legislature, but the state’s director of health care services said the two events are unrelated.
On Wednesday, in a letter emailed to health care providers, health care services director Margaret Brodie said “it is necessary for us to temporarily pend some Medicaid claims while Medicaid funds are reallocated among accounts.”
The letter said that the suspension comes because the state is being “challenged by a tight budget situation” as it approaches the end of the fiscal year.
“You have my assurance that the delay of payment will be brief, and that Alaska Medicaid will remain in full compliance with federal payment timeliness standards,” Brodie wrote.
After being contacted by the Empire, Brodie issued a followup statement through department spokeswoman Rebecca Luczycki.
The statement said the suspension is nothing new.
“Sometimes at the end of the fiscal/budget year, all states’ Medicaid programs run low on funding and may go into a budget relief period. Alaska Medicaid is currently experiencing a budget relief cycle, which we have also experienced in prior years,” Brodie said. “This is not an uncommon practice among Medicaid programs at the end of the fiscal year and is not due to the extended Legislative session or lack of a state budget for Fiscal Year 2017.”
The statement went on to say that claims are still being paid. The federal government requires Medicaid payments to be issued within specific timeframes, and the statement said those timelines will be kept.
Stacy Smith, a spokeswoman for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, provided comments by email from SEARHC Chief Financial Officer Praveen Mekala, “While never a positive, year-end budget-driven delays in Medicaid payments to providers is a fairly common place occurrence across the Lower 48.”
She wrote that the suspension shouldn’t interrupt SEARHC services for patients and shouldn’t affect SEARHC as a whole.
A spokesman for Bartlett Regional Hospital did not respond to inquiries by deadline.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.
Editor’s Note: This story has been edited to clarify the source of the SEARHC comments.
