Two years ago, 94 percent of Mt. Carmel Regional Medical Center patients had some type of health care coverage.
Since then, however, the number of uninsured individuals has continued to grow, a trend made worse by the economic recession.
"Today, it's more like 10 percent who don't have coverage," said Deb Brainbridge, Mt. Carmel CFO.
When that's put into dollars and cents, that four percent jump sounds even worse. For every one percent increase in the number of uninsured patients, Mt. Carmel loses approximately $1.5 million from bills that cannot or are not paid.
"We've seen just in the first nine months of this year about $3 million in additional uncollectible care," Brainbridge said, "because people just can't pay their bills."
From Oct. 1, 2008 to June 30, Mt. Carmel wrote off $14.2 million bills to uncompensated cares, according to information provided to The Morning Sun by the hospital. That represents a $5.2 million increase in uncompensated billings from the same period two years ago.
It's not just the Pittsburg hosptial that is experiencing hikes in the number of uninsured patients. Mercy Health Systems of Kansas, with hospitals in Fort Scott and Independence, has written off $18 million in what it calls "charity care." Approximately 7.5 percent of Mercy's patients are uninsured, an increase of 1.5 percent since last year.
Nationwide, there are approximately 46 million Americans who do not have health insurance, an issue the Obama administration has made one of its top priorities.
Last week, Vice President Joe Biden announced a plan that would help pay for expanded health coverage by reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals by $155 billion over the next decade. The plan, developed with cooperation from the American Hospital Association, would reportedly save hospitals $170 billion by reducing the amount of uninsured patients, offsetting the payment reductions.
On the AHA Web site, President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock said last week's "developments mean coverage for all could be within our nation's reach."
But this area's hospital administrators are, so far, reluctant to completely endorse the proposal. Mt. Carmel CEO Jonathan Davis said the success of the plan would depend on the uninsured taking advantage of the expanded health care coverage.
"They have presumptions around what the uninsured group is that's out there and those projected costs and some projected offsets," Davis said. "But there is no guarantee. There's a guarantee we'll see a reduction, but there is no guarantee we'll make it up."
Woodrich said nearly everyone the medical profession agrees that all Americans should have health insurance. But if paying for that means cutting funding to hospitals, Woodrich will need to see more details before he backs such a plan.
"In today's environment, with all of the reimbursement changes that have already happened," he said, "the majority of hospitals are struggling financially. If you're going to cut reimbursement even more and rely upon us to try to take more care of the uninsured, we just can't continue to take on that burden.
"I think it's going to take some time until they find out what area they are going to concentrate on," he said. "The biggest thing is how we're going to pay for it and not hurt hospitals of all different sizes."
Because no hospital is exactly like another, Davis said it will be important for any federal plan to take into consideration how each different size of hospital would be affected.
"I think it will be critically important to model all those elements that they believe will save money or will enhance revenue for the hospitals," he said.
PITTSBURG —
