As of this week, Planned Parenthood health centers across the region can’t get reimbursed for the care they provide to many of their patients. A court order that had allowed the health centers to temporarily receive Medicaid payments expired Monday and was not renewed.
That came after Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on July 7 over a provision in the reconciliation bill that effectively bars health centers from receiving Medicaid payments for the next year. The policy applies to any medical services, including cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and birth control.
About a quarter of patients who get care at Planned Parenthood health centers in northern New England are covered under Medicaid, and the legislation also impacts more than a dozen reproductive health care clinics in Maine called Maine Family Planning.
The worst-case scenario is that we are unable to see Medicaid insured patients.Nicole Clegg, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England
The case is still playing out in court. Planned Parenthood health centers in states where abortion is illegal or that operate within organizations that receive under $800,000 in revenue can still receive federal dollars. That doesn’t apply to any clinics in New England.
“We are caught in this sort of limbo that’s really sort of holding us hostage and holding our patients hostage,” said Nicole Clegg, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which includes health centers in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
“We don’t know when the court will issue further decisions and what those decisions will mean for us.”
In an order issued Monday, a federal district judge in Massachusetts wrote Planned Parenthood has "a substantial likelihood of success" in the case. The next day, the Trump administration issued an appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
For now, health centers are continuing to provide care to Medicaid patients for free. Clegg said that could change.
“The worst-case scenario is that we are unable to see Medicaid insured patients,” she said.
The organization is working with various state leaders to see whether state funding might be used to backfill the roughly $5 million in federal revenue they stand to lose, including $2.3 million in Vermont.
Right now, they rely on donations to cover about 40% of operations. Clegg said that’s because reimbursement rates across the entire health care system were already insufficient for providers to cover the cost of care. She doesn’t want fundraising dollars to have to cover the full cost of treating Medicaid patients as well.
“These are public programs. They're government-run programs,” she said. “We shouldn't have to rely on philanthropy.”
