Upstate NY hospitals may get $1B boost in Medicare funds. See the list

• Hospitals in the Finger Lakes are expected to get about $242 million more per year from Medicare.
• The boost in the Southern Tier would be $111 million, and Mohawk Valley gets about $87 million.

Hospitals across upstate New York are poised to get a nearly $1 billion increase in Medicare funding per year under new federal rules, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said Friday.

The added federal dollars would begin flowing, the New York Democrat said, if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approves the proposed Medicare wage cost rules change as expected in August.

The measure comes as many patients in New York now face lengthy wait times at emergency rooms and, in some areas, cutbacks in medical services as hospitals struggle financially due, in part, to historic inflation and rising costs for labor, drugs and other essential supplies.

The rules are connected to differences in how Medicare calculates payments to hospitals based on workforce costs in each community, called the Medicare Wage Index rate. Schumer and other federal lawmakers have spent years pushing to change the rules, which they asserted unfairly shortchanged upstate hospitals compared to national averages.

“The amount of money that is going to hospitals — well deserved — means that just about every aspect of health care will improve for upstate New Yorkers,” Schumer said in a media briefing.

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The percentage that Medicare wage funding will increase varies by region, ranging from 12.5% in Ithaca to 43% in Albany, he added, noting the Albany area was getting only 86% of what the average hospital received each year since the 1980s.

How much more Medicare funding will NY hospitals get?

The total estimated increase in Medicare funding by region includes:

• Finger Lakes: $242.6 million
• Southern Tier: $111.3 million
• Mohawk Valley: $87.3 million
• Capital Region: $193 million
• North Country: $41.7 million
• Central New…