All pending referrals to NZ now on hold

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Since last week’s announcement from the Director of Medicaid Sandra King Young that the only Medicaid funding available will go towards the LBJ Hospital, residents who had been approved for the NZ referral program but were awaiting appointments at NZ hospitals have been asking what will happen to them.

Medicaid Director Sandra King Young told KHJ News there are several dozen people still waiting to be accepted into New Zealand.

However because Congress has not approved funding beyond November 21, they have to discontinue the NZ referrals and other services which Medicaid has been funding.

” I have no choice but to suspend our new services until Congress passes additional funding for our program to avoid our government from going into debt that we cannot pay–and prevent us from losing our credit in NZ for future referrals,” she explained.

The other territories face similar consequences.

The Medicaid Office is currently working with NZ to try and return all patients who are there now back by December 25.

The Director added that for patients who still have not been accepted by NZ, their cases will be sent back to LBJ Hospital.

“There is nothing we can do if NZ does not accept their cases mainly due to unavailability of providers and this is the holiday season when many NZ medical providers close down.”

According to King-Young all new Medicaid services are on hold including the Off island Medical referrals to NZ until Congress acts on passing legislation to increase AS and all the other territories’ block grants.

“The help we received under the Disaster Relief Act and the Continuing Resolution, of the 100% FMAP (86% for AS because of non-individual eligibility enrollment), was only temporary through 9/30 and 11/21,” said the director.

She emphasized that people should know efforts to implement these new services outside of the hospital was their attempt to use the Affordable Care Act funds while we have it.

The ACA funding was effective from 2011 to 2019–an 8-year time period.

“Our hope has always been that before the ACA funds expired, that Congress would have acted on passing a permanent solution to our block grant shortage–otherwise we would face suspension of services which is now happening,” said King Young.

She added that for the past 6 years, the Governor’s Office and the Medicaid Office, have repeatedly knocked on the doors of Congressional committees and offices including our Delegate’s office about the need to address the expiration of the ACA funds and the need to increase our cap.

“We have provided data, reports, testified at Congressional hearings including proposing legislative language, and we have also leaned on our professional associations and CMS to lend their voices to our cause. Unfortunately, the traction on this issue has been stalled due to other political issues outside of our control,” she stated.