U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer delivered good news to Western New York’s hospitals on Wednesday – the kind of news that comes with a dollar sign, lots of zeroes and needed financial wiggle room for pandemic-battered facilities.
Under a now-finalized change to Medicare wage payments, Schumer said Western New York hospitals are in line for a $170 million annual funding boost – part of the $967 million a year in additional federal funding his office expects to flow to upstate hospitals.
“It is just what the doctor ordered,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. “From Buffalo to Binghamton, from Albany to Watertown, hospitals big and small, in rural and urban areas, will finally get the support and full reimbursements they have deserved.”
The Medicare wage index rate is used to determine how much money the U.S. government pays hospitals for labor costs when they treat Medicare patients, with each metro area assigned a rate that indicates whether they receive more or less than the national average. Upstate hospitals have long received less than the national figure.
Schumer, calling it “one of the biggest shots in the arm for federal funding that we have ever seen in upstate New York,” said the better reimbursements will begin in October.
Local hospital officials welcomed the news Wednesday but called on area health insurers with Medicare Advantage plans to adopt the changes within the reimbursement rates paid to hospitals. “It is equally important in our Medicare Advantage plans, provided by the local insurance companies, that those increases are also passed along to us,” Erie County Medical Center said.
Kaleida Health President and CEO Don Boyd called the Medicare wage change a recognition of “the structural reimbursement challenges that we continually face.”
“We are nowhere near being in the clear when it comes to the devastating financial impact caused by the pandemic,” he said, “so every dollar helps us dig out of…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply