Medicaid provider participation and public process to inform access to care

(a) The agency's payments must be consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and sufficient to enlist enough providers so that services under the plan are available to beneficiaries at least to the extent that those services are available to the general population. In reviewing payment sufficiency, states are required to consider, prior to the submission of any state plan amendment that proposes to reduce or restructure Medicaid service payment rates:

(1) The data collected, and the State analysis performed, under § 447.203(c).

(2) Input from beneficiaries, providers and other affected stakeholders on beneficiary access to the affected services and the impact that the proposed rate change will have, if any, on continued service access. The state should maintain a record of the public input and how it responded to such input.