Interesting items from the"State Staff report"·
71% of Muhlenberg admissions were dependent on “government payment (Medicare, Medicaid, and charity care). Of these cases in 2006 18.2 %( page 13) were charity or Medicaid. That would mean that 52% admissions were Medicare which the Federal Government claims is appropriately funded plus 29% reimbursed through insurance carriers or the patient’s own funds.
· The increase in Medicaid and charity care from 2003 to 2006 was only 2%
· There was a decrease of approximately 500 Medical/Surgical Admissions or 7% from 2005 through 2007, whereas there was an increase of 23% in ICU/CCU during the same period. There has been a small increase in OB/GYN admissions during the same period. Inpatient Psychiatric care has remained stable, and is not offered by JFK.
The first two can't justify the Solaris claim of a 200% increase in loss from 2006 to 2007, the third one can be explained by Solaris's policy to destroy Muhlenberg including offering special perks at JFK and denied at MRMC to high admitting surgeons and medical specialists. The increase in ICU/CCU reflects the true need of an acute care hospital in Plainfield.
The travel times listed were from MRMC to other hospitals when you add on time to MRMC or equivalent travel only to JFK would be marginally acceptable according to standards. Will the State consider that?
Yesterday, during my testimony to the Assembly Budget Committee on A2809, Assemblyman Gary Schaer commented on the problem of travel time to hospitals in several parts of the state. I responded by saying that the travel times to area hospitals reported by Solaris and echoed by the DHSS staff in the recommendations to the State Health Planning Board vastly underestimated the actual times, which would be affected by such factors as time of day, time of year, traffic, weather, etc.
ReplyDeleteI believe Committee members got the point.