At the eleventh hour, relief for seven regional hospitals, who”™ve collectively lost millions of dollars in Medicare reimbursements over the past couple of months, seems imminent with the passage by Congress of the Medicare, Medicaid S-CHIP extension bill of 2007. The bill restores cuts in Medicare payments that occurred after a Medicare reimbursement funding provision expired Oct. 1.
The affected hospitals are Northern Dutchess, Saint Francis, Vassar Brothers Medical Center, St. Luke”™s Cornwall, St. Anthony Community, Bon Secours Community and Orange Regional Medical Center. The funding reimbursements range from $543,240 for Northern Dutchess to $3,960,600 for Vassar Brothers. Saint Francis will receive $1,187,200, St. Luke”™s Cornwall $3,905,600 and Bon Secours $1,271,500.
The bill falls short of the goal of U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey to pass legislation that would have all of the hospitals in the mid-Hudson Valley reimbursed at the same rate as their counterparts in New York City. With passage of the Medicare extension bill, all of the affected hospitals, except St. Luke”™s Cornwall, would be reimbursed at the higher rate that applies to facilities in New York City. (According to the federal government”™s system of reimbursement, hospitals in or near metropolitan areas get different reimbursement rates, depending on cost of living and wages in the area.)
But St. Luke”™s Cornwall, along with Kingston Hospital and Benedictine Hospital, also in Kingston, are continuing to be reimbursed at lower rates. Hinchey has introduced legislation that would allow those hospitals to be reimbursed at the higher New York City rates as well, but it has failed to pass.
According to Jeff Lieberson, press representative for Hinchey, the Senate dropped the ball. “The Senate failed to take up its own version of the Medicare bill, which weakened the ability to have the provision included in the funding bill and of Congress as a whole to stand up to the White House”™s veto threat.”
He said Hinchey will continue to draft new legislation addressing the problem. Hinchey will work with House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-New York City, who played a critical role in getting the new reimbursement rates for the Hudson Valley hospitals increased in the Medicare extension bill, to introduce separate legislation in 2008, Lieberson said.
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