Posted on 01/26/2024 9:55:34 PM PST by 11th_VA
The Denver hospital system is turning away local residents because it is flooded with migrant visits.
Denver Health CEO Donna Lynne warned the center is in a crucial moment due to unexpected costs associated with immigrant visits.
What I think is not being said is that Denver Health is at a critical, critical point and that we need to take this up in 2024,” Lynne told the Denver City Council, according to the Denver Post.
Eight-thousand migrants from Central America accounted for approximately 20,000 visits in 2023. Denver Health asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide funds for immigrants’ medical costs. The state and federal governments aren’t reimbursing the hospital, which spent $136 million for patients who didn’t pay.
Beckers Hospital Review notes CEO says ‘It’s Going to Break Denver Health’
The health system is overwhelmed with care costs for uninsured patients, particularly migrants — 36,000 of whom have arrived in Denver since December 2022, according to The Denver Post.
“Where do you think the migrants are getting care? They are getting care at Denver Health,” Dr. Lynne said at a Jan. 9 finance and governance committee meeting. Her remarks were reported by CBS Colorado on Jan. 12.
Denver Health has treated more than 8,000 migrants who lack legal documentation in the past year, totaling about 20,000 visits, according to Steven Federico, MD, a pediatrician at the health system.
The majority of these patients are coming from Venezuela and arrive needing treatment for chronic and communicable diseases after making the difficult journey.
Eric Lavonas, MD, an emergency physician at Denver Health, expects the situation to worsen as subzero temperatures sweep across Colorado, exposing unhoused, uninsured populations to frostbite and hypothermia. In 2020, the health system had about $60 million in uncompensated care costs. Last year, costs sprung to $136 million, a quarter of which came from caring for non-Denver residents.
Due to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, Denver Health cannot turn patients away from the emergency room and has resorted to other cost-cutting measures. The system closed 15 of its 78 inpatient beds for substance misuse and mental health treatment and did away with planned salary increases.
Denver Health lost $35 million in 2022, and 2023 could have been worse had the system not received some outside help, according to the Post...
It figures that Cloward and Piven were involved in that law. Democrats naturally moved towards fraud friendly voting. They eventually tortured the law enough to where they could outright steal Presidential elections.
I just had my annual visit with my PCP the other day. He’s on the staff of one of the world’s most famous hospitals. We were talking about the hospital (I’m a retiree of that hospital) and I commented on something that shouldn’t be happening in a hospital of that stature but was. He looked at me and said “you don’t know the half of it”.
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