Florida’s Medicaid managed-care plans will see their rates increase later this year, state officials said Thursday.
The plans that participate in Florida’s Medicaid managed-care market will have an average 1.5 percent rate increase effective Oct. 1, according to Tom Wallace, an assistant deputy secretary for Medicaid finance and data analytics at the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
Wallace told state economists that the average 1.5 percent increase in rates is less than a previously projected 2 percent increase.
The Legislature included a 2 percent rate increase in the budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1, Wallace said.
Medicaid long-term managed care plans will see about a 2.3 percent increase, but Wallace said part of that boost is attributable to the Legislature’s decision to increase funding for nursing homes by $70 million.
Wallace told members of the Social Services Estimating Conference Committee about the rate increases during a meeting on Thursday.
Final estimates on Medicaid spending for the 2020-21 fiscal year were not immediately available following the meeting. Florida had more than 4.1 million people enrolled in Medicaid as of June 30, according to the latest available data. The number of Medicaid enrollees has been increasing because of job losses and other economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
State officials predict that Medicaid enrollment will balloon by more than 14 percent during the state’s current fiscal year, with economists predicting an average monthly enrollment of 4.36 million people.
Most Medicaid beneficiaries - 3.2 million - are in managed-care plans as a result of a law that instituted a statewide managed-care system. The state has contracts with 13 managed-care companies to offer health services to poor, elderly and disabled residents.
The state also has contracts with five managed-care plans to provide specialty services - such as mental-health services, care for people with HIV and AIDS and care to children with chronic medical conditions.
