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CMS approves plan to help New Orleans safety-net clinics
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Oct. 18, 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in September approved a plan allowing Louisiana to redirect nearly $100 million in Medicaid hospital funds during the next three years to a network of more than 90 neighborhood primary care clinics serving uninsured and underinsured patients in New Orleans.
The decision came just weeks before the expiration of the three-year, $100 million Primary Care and Access Stabilization Grant that helped fund the clinics. Many of the clinics are certified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as patient-centered medical homes, meaning they offer electronic tracking of tests, referrals, care management and physician performance, among other things. Most opened after Hurricane Katrina closed Charity Hospital, long the principal source of care for the city's uninsured patients.
The waiver is meant to keep the clinics going until 2014, when the massive expansion of Medicaid eligibility scheduled under health system reform should help them become financially self-sustaining.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/10/18/prbf1018.htm.