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The Maryland Department of Health and Kaiser Permanente have settled negotiations on a contract that will let the health care company continue as a state Medicaid provider, ensuring that more than 100,000 Medicaid recipients maintain access to their current doctors.
In a joint statement Wednesday, the department and the company said their agreement will increase 鈥渁ccountability and responsibility鈥� among the state鈥檚 providers while focusing on the state鈥檚 鈥渆fforts to achieve health equity and improve health outcomes for Marylanders.鈥�
reported last week that the department had dropped Kaiser Permanente as one of the managed care organizations that provide Medicaid services through contracted arrangements between the state and health care agencies. Soon after, Kaiser Permanente 鈥渞eached out to further continue negotiations with the health secretary,鈥� the department said in a statement Tuesday.
At that point, the department had agreed to continue contracts with eight other Medicaid participants: Aetna Better Health, CareFirst Community Health Plan, Jai Medical System, Maryland Physicians Care, MedStar Family Choice, Priority Partners, United Healthcare and Wellpoint.
A department official said that the 2025 contracts include changes that increase accountability and health equity among the managed care organizations. They also require the providers to screen patients for social needs such as food access, transportation, housing and employment, among other requirements.
While it鈥檚 not clear if the new requirements led to the initial disagreement with Kaiser Permanente, an official with the department said Wednesday that Kaiser Permanente had agreed to the updated requirements in the new agreement.
Losing Kaiser Permanente as a Medicaid provider could have been a 鈥渕ajor crisis鈥� for some 109,000 Medicaid recipients who would have lost access to their physicians, said Gene Ransom, CEO of MedChi, the state鈥檚 medical society. He noted that many Kaiser Permanente patients are residents of Prince George鈥檚, Montgomery and Baltimore counties.
鈥淪ince these physicians would no longer be eligible to take care of those patients, they would have to go to other physicians. And we just don鈥檛 have enough doctors to do that,鈥� Ransom said. 鈥淲e would essentially, suddenly, have 100,000 people displaced to find new physicians 鈥� and the markets just aren鈥檛 strong enough to deal with that right now.鈥�
Ransom added that people without access to a physician tend to seek care in Maryland鈥檚 already crowded emergency rooms, exacerbating the problem of extended emergency room wait times.
鈥淚f those folks got displaced and they didn鈥檛 have a doc, would that mean that they end up in the emergency room and other places like that? Where costs are higher and are already backed up?鈥� he said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 need to make them any worse.鈥�
But the agreement between the health department and Kaiser Permanente means that such a crisis appears to have been avoided, for now.
鈥淭his is going to happen occasionally when you have something as complicated as this,鈥� Ransom said. 鈥淭he most important thing is that everybody calmed down and worked it out.鈥�
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