THE SENATE	S.B. NO.	397
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2023
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

Relating to professional medicaid services.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that nearly one third of Hawaii’s residents and half of all keiki are enrolled in medicaid. Since the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in March 2020, medicaid enrollment has increased forty per cent. However, timely access to providers can prove difficult, especially in rural areas where health care providers are in short supply. In 2022, the State had a shortfall of more than seven hundred fifty full-time physicians and nearly four thousand nonphysician, patient-facing health care workers, such as nurses, technicians, and patient service representatives.

The legislature further finds that due to the significant number of Hawaii residents receiving medicaid coverage, health care providers often receive less reimbursement from medicaid than from medicare or commercial insurances for the same service. While some providers are reimbursed at cost or at the same rates as medicare -- such as critical access hospitals, community health centers, and providers who perform certain services -- most individual health care professionals, such as physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and advanced practice registered nurses, are not. Lesser reimbursements contribute to the challenges providers face in sustaining practices, leading some health care providers to limit or refuse to accept medicaid patients. Investing in medicaid by matching reimbursement levels to those of medicare would allow more health care providers to accept medicaid patients, improving access to care.

Therefore, the purpose of this Act is to appropriate funds to increase medicaid reimbursements to eligible health care professionals to match the current medicare fee schedule.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $30,000,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2023-2024 and the same sum or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2024-2025 to increase medicaid payments to eligible health care professionals in the State up to one hundred per cent of the current medicare rates.

The sums appropriated shall be expended by the department of human services for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. The appropriations made by this Act shall not lapse at the end of the fiscal year for which the appropriation is made; provided that all moneys from the appropriation unencumbered as of June 30, 2025, shall lapse as of that date.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2023.

INTRODUCED BY:

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Report Title:

Medicaid; Reimbursements; Medicare; Appropriation

Description:

Appropriates funds to increase Medicaid payments to eligible health care professionals in the State up to one hundred per cent of the current Medicare rates.

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