Sen. Breen bill to adequately compensate family planning providers passes Senate

AUGUSTA – On Tuesday, the Maine Senate approved a bill from Sen. Cathy Breen, D-Falmouth, to recognize the wide range of care MaineCare clients receive in family planning settings. LD 811, “An Act To Protect the Reproductive Rights and Freedoms of Maine People,” will establish an equity payment for these providers to ensure that they are adequately reimbursed.

“Family planning providers serve the public in ways that often go far beyond what we think of as family planning. We ask a lot of them and they consistently deliver,” said Sen. Breen. “Their contributions to public health are enormous, especially since the onset of Covid-19. This bill allows them to be compensated appropriately for the vast amount of important work they do.”

LD 811 states that, beginning in July, a payment must be made to sexual and reproductive health care providers for each MaineCare-covered patient encounter to compensate for the additional services they deliver. This equity payment must cover the difference between total operating costs and the payments currently made for billed services. The bill will trigger a nine to one federal match for every state dollar spent.

Reproductive health care providers are on the front lines of Maine’s health care system. Patients are largely people in their 20s and 30s and, for many of these clients, family planning providers are the only health care professionals they see. Because of this, these providers deal with a broad scope of issues, often referred to as social determinants of health: mental health, substance use, tobacco use, personal safety, and access to basic needs like food and housing security.

“Our unique value when it comes to opioid misuse and substance use disorders, as well as mental health disorders and social determinants of health, is firmly rooted in the deep level of trust patients place in us and the high level of honesty people give us as a trusted sexual and reproductive health provider,” said Nicole Clegg of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. “The reality is that, today, a patient walking through our doors receives far more than a prescription to birth control or a Pap test. The state’s MaineCare system has not caught up to this shift.”

The bill faces further votes in the Legislature.