Budget conference: Senate agrees to hike payments to pediatricians by $76.1M

House Speaker Paul Renner spoke about the positives and negatives of requiring Primary runoffs. But no committee in his chamber weighed the issue. Image via Colin Hackley/Florida Politics.

The Senate has offered to spend $76.1 million to increase Medicaid rates for pediatricians who treat poor and low-income children.

The Senate has offered to spend nearly $53 million to increase Medicaid reimbursements for stand-alone children’s specialty hospitals, which brings the chamber in line with a previous House offer.

The Senate, though, has not backed off its push to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for all hospitals that treat pediatric patients, with the chamber still requesting a $76.1 million increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates for the facilities.

Funding for graduate medical education (GME) programs also has not been settled, though the Senate on Saturday backed off its push to increase spending for a statewide GME program by $96 million. The Senate on Saturday made the House an offer that would increase GME funding by $61.5 million instead.

The Senate also introduced a new issue: increasing reimbursements for prescribed pediatric extended care facilities by nearly $5 million.

This is the first offer to negotiate health and human services (HHS) spending that the top budget writers — Sen. Doug Broxson and Rep. Tom Leek — have made since the HHS budget was bumped to them to settle.

The initial Senate offer did not include any offers on budget proviso or a budget implementing bill (HB 5303). The implementing bill makes changes to the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research program law and the academic cancer centers that can qualify for the increased funds.

House Speaker Paul Renner has made it a priority to expand the Florida KidCare program to more children, throwing his effort behind legislation that expands income eligibility to children living in homes at 300% of the federal poverty level. But Renner has said that Medicaid payments to pediatricians are so low that unless they are increased physicians may not want to treat the newly eligible children.

Budget conference subcommittees are meeting throughout the week to resolve differences in each area. When remaining issues reach an impasse, they will be “bumped” to the full budget conference committee.

Lawmakers must reach an agreement on a final spending plan by May 2 to meet the 72-hour “cooling off” period required by the state constitution before they can vote on the budget to avoid pushing the Regular Session past its scheduled May 5 end date.