Politics Over Patients

For years, patients covered by Medicaid have still been able to see non-participating physicians, pay for services and get those physicicians prescriptions filled. Thanks to the oxymoronic Affordable Care Act, this is coming to an end.

From NY State's DOH -

"As has been reported in previous Medicaid Updates (April 2011 and June 2012),
provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) require prescribers to be enrolled in state Medicaid programs to be eligible to order or refer services reimbursed by the fee-forservice (FFS) Medicaid program. This means that any practitioner not currently enrolled in NYS Medicaid must do so to continue to order or refer services for FFS beneficiaries.

Effective October 2013, prescriptions written by prescribers that are not enrolled in NYS FFS Medicaid will deny at the point-of-service. Failure to enroll will impact your patients’ ability to obtain their medications.

The Department has identified non-enrolled prescribers with high volumes of prescriptions for FFS beneficiaries. Staff members are proactively reaching out to those prescribers in an effort to facilitate enrollment in an effort to ensure that patient care is not disrupted."

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" Ronald Wilson Reagan