The Medicaid Question

Recently it came to our attention that Great Lakes Health Plan is now part of UHC in Michigan. The last I knew Great Lakes was a Medicaid plan.  This brings some interesting questions to mind:

If all the states move to Medicaid voucher programs, is this a play for UHC to get the upper hand in this process?  Medicaid voucher programs are becoming very popular as states and the federal government struggle to control cost and yet allow access to everyone.  For example, Florida is now looking to move all their Medicaid patient’s into voucher programs.  What does this mean to you as a medical practice?  It means that now you have to negotiate a contract for all these patients plus  you now have an extra middle man between you and your payment for your hard work.  We all know that dealing with Medicaid is a pain; dealing with Medicaid HMOs is going to be even harder.  This is just like instead of borrowing money from a bank, you are now borrowing money from the loan shark. 

Last thought, I worked in the Detroit health care market in the 90’s and at that time there were numerous Medicaid HMOs in the market all trying to make a go of it.  Most of these imploded and went bankrupt.  In the end the physicians got paid $0.2 on the dollar…