Medicaid funding is resuming for Planned Parenthood after being cut off for most of a year

Audio By Carbonatix

Planned Parenthood and two smaller regional abortion providers are resuming billing Medicaid for services other than abortion after being cut off for most of a year.

The defunding, which was mandated in President Donald Trump's big tax and policy law last year, has been blamed in the closure of multiple clinics as well as a reduction in the number of Planned Parenthood patients being screened for breast cancer or tested for sexually transmitted infections.

The Medicaid billing was allowed to resume Sunday.

The restored funding does not mean the battle over federal abortion policy has ended, and not all services that were cut will return.

Here's what to know about the situation.

Many abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, have struggled financially since the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed state abortion bans to be enforced. Clinics have closed in states with abortion bans and restrictions as well as those without.

Planned Parenthood says its affiliates have closed nearly 30 of its roughly 600 clinics over the past year, citing the funding change as a key reason.

Over that period, affiliates dispensed about 25% fewer packs of birth control pills and conducted about 20% fewer breast cancer exams than the previous year.

Many patients — especially in places where healthcare can be hard to access — may not have had care at all because of the defunding, the organization said.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund spokesperson Angela Vasquez-Giroux said the cuts have also led to limited abortion access in some places.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin halted abortions for about a month, then dropped its status as an “essential community provider” so it could resume seeking reimbursement. The Arizona affiliate paused offering many of its services to patients covered by Medicaid.

The defunding provision also impacted two other healthcare providers that met the criteria in the law because the were nonprofit family planning organizations that provided abortion and received more than $800,000 yearly in Medicaid reimbursements.

Their experiences were very different.

Maine Family Planning closed three primary care clinics that served about 1,000 patients in the largely rural state.

Evelyn Kieltyka, a senior vice president of program services, said Monday that even with help, their former patients had to wait an average of four to six months to be established with new providers.

Meanwhile, the number of abortions the group provided held steady, she said. Maine is one of several states where state-funded Medicaid covers abortion.

Patients at Health Imperatives in Massachusetts may not have noticed the change, as no services were dropped.

The state government funded Medicaid reimbursements that the federal government stopped — something that Planned Parenthood says happened in some form in 14 states. On top of that, the clinic system received a grant from Melinda Gates's foundation.

Planned Parenthood's Arizona affiliate has already announced expanded hours and more telehealth options linked to the ability to bill Medicaid again.

Some other services are not likely to be restored.

Kieltyka said Maine Family Planning isn't planning to bring back its primary care practices again.

“When you close something down and you lose positions,” she said, “it’s very difficult to bring that back and build it back up again.”

And Michelle Quesada, vice president of communications, brand and marketing for the Planned Parenthood affiliate in Florida, said a closed clinic in Lakeland isn't expected to reopen, partly out of concern that Congress or the Trump administration could cut Medicaid reimbursements for the organization again.

“There’s no telling with this uncertainty,” she said. “It’s like a yo-yo effect.”

The political battle isn't over.

Abortion opponents are pushing Congress to adopt another defunding policy.

“They've defunded Big Abortion before,” Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said Monday, “and they should do everything in their power to do it again.”

Planned Parenthood contends that general election voters don't want the organization to be defunded. Pritchard said Republican primary voters do.

___

Associated Press reporter Ali Swenson contributed to this article.