February 2015 | Joel C. Cantor | Opinion: How Good Is Access to Medicaid Services in NJ? Depends on Whom You Ask
Healthcare providers and patient advocates have long argued that access to services for low-income Medicaid patients is inadequate. Low doctor-payment rates, they argue, mean that few will serve Medicaid patients. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, New Jersey has the sixth-lowest Medicaid payment rates for primary-care services and lowest payments for other services, such as obstetrics and specialty care.
There are reasons that those rankings don’t tell the whole story.