California’s 430 hospitals and health systems are shouldering the financial burden of the government’s responsibility to provide care for some of our most vulnerable patients – seniors, the disabled, children and the under-insured.In fact, California’s hospitals provide billions dollars in uncompensated care annually, primarily due to the serious under-funding of the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs.
California hospitals now provide more than $12 billion in care that was provided not paid for. Included in that figure is $4.6 billion in direct losses from inadequate Medi-Cal payments, and $3.8 billion in losses from the Medicare program. Another $3.8 billion was lost treating California’s growing uninsured and local government patients. The Medi-Cal program provides vital health care services to 6.7 million of our state’s most vulnerable populations. Any additional cuts will leave more seniors, children and the disabled without adequate coverage and access to care.
The Medi-Cal program provides vital health care services to 6.8 million of our state’s most vulnerable populations. Any additional cuts will leave more seniors, children and the disabled without adequate coverage and access to care.
California ranks dead last in the nation in terms of Medi-Cal payments to doctors and hospitals. According to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California, Medi-Cal patients have become the largest users of hospital emergency rooms, due to a decreasing number of physicians who will accept Medi-Cal’s poor reimbursement rates.
PORTOLA – Within the next few weeks – even days – the hospital
that has been saving lives in this rural Plumas County community
since 1910 may itself face mortality.
February 21, 2013The Inyo RegisterFebruary 20, 2013
New, reduced Medi-Cal provider reimbursement rates could
adversely affect patient treatment and even threaten the very
existence of a local hospital district.
Like many critical access hospitals, Southern Inyo Healthcare
District and its skilled nursing facility are in danger of
closing if drastically-reduced Medi-Cal provider reimbursement
rates are retroactively enforced effective January 2013, SIHD
Chief Executive Officer/Chief Financial Officer Lee Barron said.
Medicaid is in desperate financial trouble. The states know it.
Hospitals know it. Doctors know it. And as each group cuts back
on services to try to save money, increasingly patients know it,
too.
Hospital officials in California’s rural counties say the latest
round of cuts to Medi-Cal could leave thousands of the state’s
neediest people without access to medical care.
September 11, 2011C. Duane Dauner, President/CEO, California Hospital Association
California ranks 51st nationally in Medicaid payments to health
care providers per enrollee.
The spotlight is shining on health care costs. It’s an issue that
generates newspaper headlines and debate among business leaders,
policymakers and consumers. But for all of the arguments — and
accusations — that emanate from this discussion, the facts are
more complex than the dialogue often reflects.
My mother had been in pain for sometime in her abdomen and in
her back. Eventually, the pain became so bad that I took her to
St Mary’s emergency room…
