TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida providers are scrambling to quash an effort that would establish a competitive bidding program for the state's Medicaid consumables program.
A bill to be voted on this week would mandate a competitive bidding program for all incontinence and medical consumables by December. Providers say such a move would decrease beneficiaries' access to quality health care and raise costs.
According to Sean Schwinghammer, acting director of the Florida Alliance of Home Care Services, language was "snuck into appropriations bills" in both of the state's legislative chambers that authorized the Agency for Health Care Administration (Florida's Medcaid agency) to create a competitive bidding program for Medicaid waivers and all consumable medical supplies.
"Each appropriations bill was over 380 pages, and this was just a six-line paragraph in each that was put in, so it's hard to find," Schwinghammer said. He added that the provision was inserted on the Thursday before Easter "when everybody was on the way out of town."
Representatives of the recently formed association flew to Tallahassee to fight the measure last week. "FAHCS representatives have made great strides engaging elected officials and policymakers, but the Senate appropriations bill was approved and the House bill will be approved shortly," the association said in a Friday update. "The effort is now concentrated on having the item removed in conference committee."
The conference committee is scheduled to begin considering the appropriations bill today.
"Medicaid waivers are a big deal in our state," said Schwinghammer, "so consolidating them to one or two companies is really scary. The way it has happened is not what good government is about, and we're trying to get it fixed."
According to the FACHS update, there could also be a bill in the works to competitively bid for a single-source provider for all of the state's HME needs.
Stopping both bidding proposals is paramount, the update said: "No matter the subject matter, competitive bidding in health care is a bad idea. It destroys patient service, closes the doors of small business and creates high health care cost due to increased hospitalizations."