July 6, Wisconsin Health News
Declining Medicaid enrollment has led the Department of Health Services to predict the state will end the 2015-’17 biennium below budget for the program, according to a report released last week.
The projection suggests that general purpose revenue expenditures will be 3 percent below budgeted levels for the biennium. That’s in part due to a decline in Medicaid enrollment, which dropped by more than 6,000 between March and May.
Other factors playing a role in the projection include slower growth in prescription drug expenditures, higher drug rebate revenues and less growth in personal care and home health services.
“These positive trends in enrollment and service utilization indicate good things about ongoing improvements in the state’s economy and the department’s efforts to control Medicaid costs through better coordination, improved managed care rate setting methodologies, and fraud and abuse prevention efforts,” Tom Engels, interim DHS secretary, wrote in a letter to lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee.
Engels stressed that the margin could be “easily reversed” if enrollment, provider claims or other factors turn out “slightly less favorable than assumed.”
