Pittsburgh-area hospitals struggle to deal with rising cost of charity care - The Business Review (Albany):

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percent to $84.3 million among 28 southwesterh Pennsylvania hospitals during the third quarte r offiscal 2009, reflecting a down economt and straining health care providers at a time when the governmentr is considering cutting reimbursement to help fund healtn care reform. The founde a 24.3 percent increase in charity care among the 50 hospitals in the largeer western part of the state when comparer to thesame three-month period in for a total of $116.6 million. Hardest hit were smaller teachingb hospitals such asExcela Latrobe, Ohio Valleyh General and Washington hospitals, wherde charity care topped $5.8 million for the nine-month periodr ending March 31, a 68.
2 percent increase from the same periord a year ago. Many of theswe hospitals operate clinics, where people without insurance often turnfor help, experts say. It’z also a problem hospitals struggleto manage. “Thizs is among the hardest expendituresto control,” said Anne CFO and vice president of finance at , where the cost of free care rose $700,00o0 to $2.8 million for the quarter. “It’s a reflection of the community’ economy.” Charity care is definecd as medical care provider to people who are otherwise ineligibls forhealth insurance, including Medicaid, a state-federal program for poor people.
The squeeze is forcing hospitals to wring more dollars out of therevenue cycle, including signingh patients up for Medicaid, even though the program only pays 48 centws of every dollar of hospitalo cost in Pennsylvania, among the lowest rates in the Free care costs also are risingv at a time when the federal government is weighint $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaixd reimbursement cuts over the next 10 yearws to help pay for health care In a speech Monday, President Obama said the subsidt hospitals receive for caring for the uninsuref can be pared in the coming years because feweer people will be without health insurance.
rural hospitals are generally struggling morethan larger, urbab medical centers, according to Patricia Raffaele, vice president of the Warrendale-basede trade group. And the increases in charity care in the regiojn are among the biggest in nearly20 “There has been a phenomenal increas e in charity care overall,” Raffaele said. “That’s just Smaller hospitals often are the biggesyt employers intheir regions, and the community’as vitality is reflected in the hospital’s bottom line, according to Hospital Council CFO Frank Van “You can not divorce them from the overallk economic health of the community,” he “As the community goes, so goes the hospital.
” Defying the trencd was , where charity care was stagnant durinhg the third quarter compared with the same periofd a year ago, accordinvg to CFO Chris Little. He declinedd to release figures, but said the 105-besd hospital has a total budgeyt ofaround $33 million. Ellwood hired a new CEO a year ago and showerd positive operating cash flow in January for the first time inthreew years, Little said. Although the hospital is expected to finisj in the red this fiscal operating revenue was in theblack 3.7 percenf during the third quarter.
Ellwood’s renewed attention to the revenue including aggressively pursuing uninsured patients to sign upfor Medicaid, reviewinv contracts with insurers and quickly writing off bad Helping the hospital in the effort is Northy Shore-based consultant LLC. Ellwood is defyinfg the trend inother ways. The number of birth s during the quarter, 75, was essentially flat from the same periodxin 2008, a time when newborn admissions among the 50 westernj Pennsylvania hospitals dropped 3.62 percent to 13,170, whilse the number of births at advanced teaching including Allegheny General and UPMC Presbyterian-Shadyside rose 13 percent to 3,576.