Posted on 03/20/2023 8:53:55 PM PDT by george76
More and more Tennessee hospitals are at an increasing risk of flatlining.
The industry has struggled to rebound from the strain put on them by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There are a lot of economic and supply and labor challenges," said Curtis Vann, senior vice president of federal relations for the Tennessee Hospital Association.
Forty-five percent of hospitals across the state are at risk of closing, according to a report put out by the organization in February.
Part of the issue, Vann said, is federal Medicare reimbursements. It's something that has affected rural hospitals most. The Medicare Area Wage Index is used to calculate federal reimbursements for Medicare services. Most rural hospitals are not reimbursed at a rate that has helped to offset expenses.
"It's just a downward spiral," said Vann. "In terms of the money that you receive and then you're unable to pay your employees at the rate you need to retain them."
Nearly 60% of hospitals operated at a financial loss in 2022, according to the report.
The losses equaled 2.9%, about $500 million, according to the Tennessee Hospital Association.
Forty percent of all rural hospitals in the state are at risk of closing soon, according to The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
"There's just not getting the reimbursement that you typically would," said Vann.
A bill sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) would increase rural hospital's Medicare Area Wage Index to .85, which would increase the amount hospitals are reimbursed through the federal Medicare program.
It could offset the rising operation costs rural hospitals have dealt with since the pandemic.
Hospitals across the state have seen $3.2 billion in operation cost increases since 2019, according to the Tennessee Hospital Association.
"There are just so many hospitals that are below the floor that that bill establishes," said Vann. "So that would provide some certainty."
Wow!
The pandemic didn’t have to go this way. Now many aren’t going back to work. But don’t worry, there will be tons of new hardworking youth studying hard to become tik tok doctors and tik tok nurses.
2021, BigPharmaPfizer....Push the $hots, they said.
You’ll get big money, they said.
We’ll make sure your administrators, docs, etc, are well taken care of, they said.
2023: TN rural hospitals who?
Cloward and Piven: Rules for Radicals.
Bottom line of their book: Overwhelm the system and create chaos.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”...Government will always have the answer.
The Left has been praying for that for a decade or more.
They want fewer providers to make it hard to get services.
They want us to have to travel 500 miles for certain
services like Canadians do.
But $135 Billion has been sent to you know where with more on the way. Because American lives don’t matter to our selected officials in DC .
One has to wonder if all the MILLIONS of Biden’s illegal alien border invaders all flooding ER rooms for free medical treatments have anything to do with it.
Sounds to me like FedGov quit paying the Covid-treatment bonus to hospitals for their ventilator/Remdesivir Kevorkian treatments.
It is not just the ERs. It is also the maternity wards. I was pressed into service for my Spanish in the next room while my wife was resting post labor.
Bingo. You two have nailed perhaps the biggest issue. You don’t get much of a reimbursement for a procedure done for an uninsured illegal.
No. What it says is that Tennessee hospitals are not seeing enough patients who have insurance that actually pays them
Even in California hospitals have closed or have closed the ER because of this. The govt does not pay what it actually costs to run the hospital. If the majority of the patients are using Medicare or state Medicaid the hospital is losing on every patient
The govt distorts the market
Nah. This has been an issue for hospitals for scores of years
Ndeed
When in this “issue for years” have hospitals had to deal with the fantastic amount of pay that traveling nurses now get - because of Covid?
Thanks for posting. I told my husband when Obamacare was being discussed that most hospitals would close and become regional centers. I have seen disbursements cut and change to ensure there is little chance of profit.
Private insurers follow the Medicare model. Then there is all the administrative work to get any money at all.
There are a lot of hospitals in TN.
There are rural areas everywhere…. Looks like it hit you all as well.
You will be forced to live in a city one way or another. That’s the plan.
We are rural. My husband was in the hospital for 4 days in Chattanooga. The final bill was $64,000.00. We have supplemental insurance through P&G’s retiree insurance plan plus Medicare. I couldn’t believe how little insurance (two of them) paid the hospital. Our part of the entire bill was only $51.00. Either hospitals are over-charging or insurance companies have contracted for too little money, or both.
Walk-in clinics and Urgent Care medicals are the thing now. Nobody goes to the emergency room anymore unless sent there by one of those. Covid was a bust. The hospital he was in even had a notice posted that they were no longer testing for mild Covid symptoms.
Besides, if you have something really bad, it pays to go to a doctor out of state anyway. I have been to three doctors here for an ankle injury that happened four years ago. One was an ankle/foot specialist in Knoxville. I’m still wearing a brace and using a cane when it’s bad. Waste of time.
I always thought it was discriminatory to pay poor areas less than richer areas for the same health care.
And don’t forget there was/is a push to EXPAND Medicare/Medicaid eligibility. NC just crumbled and decided to do it because...free money!
So more people get treatments and hospitals being paid less.
I think what they are hoping for is a massive outcry to demand more taxes for free stuff. I mean, how can you not?People are DYING!
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