RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's Medicaid program will dodge two immediate fiscal crises because federal regulators agreed Wednesday to extend the deadline to carry out new personal care service requirements and state officials outlined ways to close a projected $150 million shortfall.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wrote the state Medicaid office that it would have until January 2013 to enforce new regulations to ensure people living at home and residents of adult care homes receive comparable personal care services. The paid assistance helps people with disabilities, older adults and the mentally ill with activities such as bathing, dressing and cooking.
State Medicaid officials said there wasn't time to meet a previous May 1 deadline, especially given the streamlined rules for about 46,000 recipients statewide could have meant 4,000 people living in adult care homes would be disqualified for the service.
The Division of Medical Assistance, which runs the state Medicaid program, has been working for months on a longer extension. Final word of the extension came in a letter received by division director Dr. Craigan Gray less than an hour before a government oversight committee met to discuss the deadline and the shortfall.
"I think it is a far better day than it was yesterday," state Health and Human Services acting Secretary Al Delia told North Carolina's Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations. The delay, Delia said, will give the division time to take other required corrective actions and work with legislative leaders and personal care services providers to adjust any unforeseen problems.
Without a resolution before May 1, it was possible — although unlikely — that the entire $414 million program would have been suspended, potentially causing adult care homes already on a narrow profit margin to stop serving residents and shutter their doors. Medicaid reimburses the homes for providing that kind of palliative care. Five members of North Carolina's congressional delegation also recently wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to intervene to obtain an extension.
"I never believed that the Obama administration was going to put (tens of thousands) of frail, elderly senior citizens and impaired people out on the streets of North Carolina," said Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, co-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "The extension by the federal government was certainly a logical step."
Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue's administration and Republican legislative leaders at the oversight committee also said they reached a tentative agreement on how to close the $150 million shortfall and keep paying doctors and hospitals through the fiscal year ending June 30.
State budget director Andy Willis told legislators that to up to $45 million for the gap can be found in Delia's department to pay the bills until the Legislature returns to its budget-adjusting session in May. The General Assembly then would have to act to grant the executive branch authority to spend unused money within other parts of state government, which Republicans on the commission sounded willing to do.
Funds that could be tapped include money to repair and renovate state buildings, a severance reserve for laid-off state workers and about $145 million in excess revenue collections.
