Mark H. Gallant, a co-chair of the Health Care practice at Cozen O'Connor, discusses the CMS rule that is aimed to ensure states pay providers adequate Medicaid rates so that beneficiaries have access to the same providers as the rest of the population. Mark mentions that the rule will not fix the problem of Medicaid's inadequate payment rates and hospitals will continue to lose money on Medicaid because the final rule only focuses on very broad measures of access and doesn't address payment rates at all. He went on to say that the CMS "refuses to acknowledge" the link between access to services and adequate payment. Medicaid payment is lower than Medicare, and in some cases reimbursement is so low that providers won't accept patients because it's too expensive for them to do so. 

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