Advocacy Assist – LeadingAge Missouri

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Advocacy Assistance

Welcome to LeadingAge Missouri Advocacy Assist! Here you will find information, materials and communication examples to help you support our field’s advocacy efforts to appropriately fund Medicaid service providers.

Press Release: LeadingAge Missouri Challenges CMS Staffing Mandate

LeadingAge Missouri joins 20 state affiliates in a lawsuit to overturn CMS’s new staffing mandate, citing challenges with the nationwide nursing shortage and insufficient Medicaid reimbursements. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Iowa, seeks a preliminary injunction against the mandate. Learn more

We encourage you to use links on this page to identify and communicate with State Representatives and Senators representing both your personal residence and your aging services business or community. We urge you to communicate with your elected representatives (by email, letter or phone) – telling them that the State is not adequately or fairly reimbursing Medicaid service providers for the costs of caring for older Missourians living at home or in nursing communities. The average nursing home Medicaid reimbursement rate is $164 per patient day – at least $20 below the average PPD costs for most LeadingAge Missouri members (costs are known to the State because of required cost reports). This reimbursement/cost gap must be narrowed by State reimbursement rate increases that exceed cost inflation. Below-cost reimbursement is financially unsustainable.

Materials and information found here will allow you to compose your own personalized handwritten note, card, letter or email – the most effective form of political grassroots advocacy. Alternatively, we provide a sample letter that can be copied, personally edited and mailed (address found on Legislator’s homepage), or cut and pasted into an email (email address on Legislator’s homepage). The sample letter may also serve as a script for personal phone calls to Representatives and Senators or their staff.

If all LeadingAge Missouri members and other supporters of aging services do this, we will succeed in persuading Legislators to improve Medicaid reimbursement rates for Medicaid care providers and the older Missouri Medicaid beneficiaries they serve. Thank you for making a difference for our field through your advocacy.

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Find Your Legislator

Now, more than ever, it is critical to let elected members of the General Assembly know the impact Medicaid under-funding is having on seniors and persons with disabilities in this Missouri.

Click here to look up your Representative and Senator

Medicaid provider funding is part of the annual State Budget process. That process begins with the Governor’s spending recommendations introduced as House Budget bills. House Committees work on the Budget bills from early-February through mid-March culminating in a recommendation for House passage. Upon House passage, the Senate then undertakes a similar process from mid-March through April. Critical funding decisions – like higher Medicaid rate reimbursement – occur in the House Budget Committee and Senate Appropriations Committee. Rarely are decisions made in the committees altered on the House or Senate floor. Representatives and Senators generally vote committee-produced bills up or down with few or no amendments. For this reason, winning improved Medicaid reimbursement in House and Senate committees is crucial.

Most influential to committee decisions are: House Budget Committee Chair Cody Smith, Vice-Chair David Wood and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Dan Hegeman and Vice-Chair Lincoln Hough. House and Senate Leadership are equally important to budget decisions – especially House Speaker Elijah Haahr, Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo, Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz and Majority Floor Leader Caleb Rowden. All other members of Leadership and of the House Budget and Senate Appropriations Committees are also important to budget decisions and processes. If you are represented by a committee member or member of Leadership, please communicate with them about the importance of increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates for care providers. Even if you are not represented by key committee members or leadership, communicating with them is important. One efficient and effective way to do this is to ask your personal home and work community elected representatives to support higher Medicaid reimbursement and to communicate that support to Leadership and members of the committees – then, copy Leadership and committee members on your personal member communication.

Below are links to the critical committees and Leadership. Individual member emails and addresses are found on their linked websites.

Click here and then click Budget Committee on the left-hand side of page

Click here then select Leadership on left hand side of the page

Click here for Senate Appropriations

Click here for Senate Leadership

Sample Letter

Use this letter as a starting point for your own or simply fill in the appropriate data.

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Media Resources

Now, more than ever, it is critical to let elected members of the General Assembly know the impact Medicaid under-funding is having on seniors and persons with disabilities in this Missouri.

The Medicaid Crisis in the Show Me State

End The Medicaid Crisis in the Show Me State (Word Document)

Missouri Faces Looming Long Term Care Crisis

It’s Time Missouri Prioritize Seniors, Veterans and Disabled

KC Star Rexroth Guest Editorial

KMBC Video about Medicaid Issues with Dan Rexroth from John Knox Village

John Kotovsky in the Jefferson City News Tribune

Medicaid Reimbursement Cross Hurdle in Senate

Adequate Funding Needed for Nursing Home Services

Please, Missouri: Do Not Turn Your Back on the Elderly Again

Legislature Should Fund Nursing Home Services, Avert Crisis

Medicaid Cuts Bring Financial Hardship to Residential Centers