Health care programs: provider reimbursement rates.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care benefits. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Existing law requires the department and other state agencies to administer various health programs, including the California Children's Services Program, Genetically Handicapped Person's Program, Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, State-Only Family Planning Program, Family Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment (Family PACT) Program, Healthy Families Program, and Access for Infants and Mothers Program. Existing law requires provider rates of payment for services under these programs to be identical to the rates of payment for the same service performed by the same provider type pursuant to the Medi-Cal program. This bill would provide an exception to this latter provision and require hospital inpatient rates of payment for specified programs for dates of service on or after January 1, 2011, through December 31, 2016, to be 90% of the Medi-Cal hospital interim rates of payment, as developed by the department. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.