Kansas will inject $83 million in enhanced Medicaid payments into Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and Rural Emergency Hospitals (REHs), after Governor Laura Kelly and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) received CMS approval for the Kansas Health Care Access Improvement Program (HCAIP) preprint. The preprint describes how the state’s HCAIP plan will direct the additional Medicaid payments to help these facilities continue serving rural communities.
HCAIP was created in 2004 to expand health care access through a provider tax and reimbursement structure, including an annual assessment of certain services provided by specific hospitals. The program is administered through an HCAIP panel made up of hospital leadership across the state.
KDHE said the CMS-approved plan enables implementation of the enhanced payments for CAHs and REHs, with the goal of keeping essential rural hospital services available closer to home for Medicaid patients. The article also notes that in 2025 CMS approved Kansas’ provider assessment preprint, raising the provider assessment from 3% to 6%, and that the program expansion to include CAHs and REHs follows that change.