The General Assembly met Wednesday for a one-day session to finalize changes to the current state fiscal year budget.

• The approved budget sustained the $25 million in funding for the Medicaid Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program for state fiscal year 2024, which ends June 30, 2024.
• The budget also funded the Medicaid inflation increase of 6.33, which was applied to rates beginning on July 1.
• For assisted living residents, legislators agreed to increase the auxiliary grant from $1,609 to $2,055 per month (with the 15% differential for northern Virginia). This adds $7.3 million to the program effective January 1, 2024. We are pleased with this increase and hope that future General Assembly’s will build on it.

For context: VHCA-VCAL had advocated for other Medicaid reform funding, our review of the budget and discussions with budget committee staff members reveal that not nearly as much new funding was available for the entire budget compared to when the budget talks broke down back in February.

• Of the funding available, the General Assembly directed funding to tax relief, K-12 education, and behavioral health-related initiatives.
• In addition, it appears that due to the delay in the budget, automatic funding triggers for various state obligations (the rainy-day fund, water quality, etc.) were tripped. This all contributed to less funding being spent on Health and Human Resources initiatives.

Next steps: We have already begun our planning for our 2024 advocacy priorities to seek improvements to Medicaid reimbursement and make other important reforms.