Published by: Obaid Zaman on 12/23/2010 1:08:06 PM
Today NAPH released its annual report detailing the results of the Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Member Hospital Characteristics Survey. The information gathered in this survey gives a snapshot of the state of safety net hospitals in America, detailing the services they provided, examining the important roles they play in their communities, and detailing the financial challenges they face in fulfilling their mission to provide care to all, regardless of their ability to pay.
The results of NAPH’s annual survey are important to the advocacy work that is done on behalf of our members as it quantifies the level of care provided by these institutions and the indispensible role they play in the nation’s health care safety. The survey results are also critical to our research work as we try to understand our members better and how NAPH can assist them, especially during this transition period as health reform is implemented. Our members also benefit from the survey because they are able to indentify peers in other parts of the country that may be dealing with same types of issues they are.
The survey results show the essential part public hospitals play in maintaining the well-being of our nation’s citizens. NAPH members are often the key safety net facilities in major cities across country so they are responsible for provided high volumes of care, and often the care is provided to patients who wouldn’t be able obtain treatment elsewhere because of their lack of insurance or lack of resources to pay. As a result a large portion of the care NAPH member provide is unreimbursed, meaning that either they receive no payment from the patient or the payments they do receive don’t cover the costs for providing the care.
The fact that NAPH members often face high levels of unreimbursed care mean they regularly deal with financial margins that lag behind the rest of the hospital industry. In 2009, the average NAPH hospital margin was 2.5% compared to 5.0% for the rest of the hospital industry. Without important Medicaid funding sources like Medicaid Disproportionate Share Payments and other supplemental Medicaid payments, the average NAPH member would face margins approaching -12%.
In spite of these figures, there are potential reductions in funding to the safety net as coverage expansion take place under health reform, but public hospitals not only serve patients that lack the resources to pay for their care, they are often the only source of critical services, like trauma care, in many parts of the country. As lawmakers move forward with implementing health reform, it will be vitally important that measures are taken to ensure safety net hospitals are able to continue to provide the level of services that their communities and the nation rely on.