Bill Text: HI HB705 | 2010 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Medicaid Presumptive Eligibility; Long-Term Care
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2009-05-11 - Carried over to 2010 Regular Session. [HB705 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2010-HB705-Amended.html
STAND. COM. REP. NO. 253
Honolulu, Hawaii
, 2009
RE: H.B. No. 705
Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say
Speaker, House of Representatives
Twenty-Fifth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2009
State of Hawaii
Sir:
Your Committees on Human Services and Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 705 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"
beg leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this bill is to facilitate and expedite the provision of medicaid services to presumptively medicaid eligible individuals who are waitlisted to receive long-term care and other types of care.
Specifically, this bill requires the Department of Human Services to presume that a waitlisted patient applying for medicaid is, in fact, eligible for coverage, thus speeding the delivery of medicaid services to the patient; provided that the applicant is able to show proof of:
(1) Annual income at or below the maximum level allowed under federal law or waiver;
(2) Verification of assets;
(3) Confirmation of waitlisted status; and
(4) Meeting the level of care requirement for institutional or home- and community-based long-term care.
If the applicant is determined at a later date to be ineligible, the Department of Human Services is required to disenroll the patient and reimburse the medicaid services provider for the time during which the waitlisted patient was enrolled.
The bill also requires the Department of Human Services to report findings and recommendations to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the 2011 regular session regarding the costs and other issues related to the implementation of medicaid presumptive eligibility. Finally, this bill appropriates $200,000 in each of fiscal year 2009-2010 and fiscal year 2010-2011 to cover the cost of any reimbursements made to providers or plans for services provided during the time waitlisted patients are enrolled but eventually determined to be ineligible.
Your Committees received testimony in support of this bill from the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, Hawaii Disability Rights Center, and Hawaii Pacific Health. The Department of Human Services submitted testimony in opposition.
Your Committees find that there are at any given time two hundred waitlisted patients in acute care hospital settings across the State who are deemed medically ready for discharge and are no longer in need of acute care services, but who cannot be discharged due to various barriers, such as delays in medicaid eligibility determinations. Discharge for waitlisted patients may take a few days to over a year. This situation creates a poor quality of life for the patient, presents an often insurmountable dilemma for providers and patients, and causes a serious drain on the financial resources of acute care hospitals, with ripple effects felt throughout other health care service sectors.
Your Committees find that it is in the State's best interest to ensure that medicaid eligible patients waitlisted for long-term care or other types of care receive appropriate medical care by authorizing the Department of Human Services to apply medicaid presumptive eligibility to qualified waitlisted patients.
As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 705 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Finance.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Human Services and Health,
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____________________________ RYAN I. YAMANE, Chair |
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____________________________ JOHN M. MIZUNO, Chair |
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