Small hospitals prioritized for state funds
Milford Hospital and Bristol Hospital are among those that will receive portions of more than $14 million through the state”™s Small Hospital Pool.
Given the differences between the profit margins of large hospitals and small ones, the state Office of Policy and Management recently announced it is taking action to support six small hospitals.
| Hospital | Payment From Small Hospital Pool |
| Bristol | $2,917,675 |
| Day Kimball | $2,777,203 |
| Griffin | $3,315,317 |
| Hungerford | $2,051,467 |
| Johnson | $2,301,469 |
| Milford | $736,870 |
According to the announcement, Connecticut hospitals had one of their best years on record last year, in which hospital health systems saw total revenue in excess of expenses of $916.4 million, a $186.2 million, or 26 percent, increase from the previous fiscal year. While large hospitals have healthy margins and robust executive compensation, there are small hospitals in need of additional assistance to continue to provide services.
The combined operations revenue of the six hospitals targeted for pool funds is about one-eighth of Yale-New Haven and Hartford Healthcare combined. In the last four years, those two hospitals took in more than 50 percent of the total revenue over expenses for all hospitals and hospital systems in the state.
“We know hospitals are not one-size-fits all, and that”™s why we”™re proactively reprioritizing and reallocating dollars to support small hospitals that need support most,” Ben Barnes, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, said. “To be clear, hospital systems are seeing extraordinary revenues, but today we”™re working to reprioritize and reallocate payments so we can assist the small hospitals and support patient care. The six small hospitals we are helping today lost millions in fiscal year 2014, and we”™re proactively working to support them. We are trying to help those small hospitals serving our Medicaid population.”
The funds are being made available through a reprioritization of a portion of the remaining quarter of Medicaid supplemental payments.
The Small Hospital Pool was established this year for hospitals with no more than 180 beds, not affiliated with any other hospital and not in contiguous towns. The Medicaid Supplemental Pool is the program by which the state returns to the hospitals a portion of hospital tax revenue on a quarterly basis.