New legislation would increase Medicare payments to rural hospitals
FISHERSVILLE-Rural hospitals like Augusta Health suffer financially on the reimbursement for Medicare patients, who account for about 50 percent of the operation's patient load.
But federal legislation introduced last month by two Virginia U.S. senators would buck up the Medicare reimbursement formula for rural hospitals. The Fair Medicare Hospital Payments Act of 2016, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, would establish a national minimum wage index for Medicare reimbursement.
Warner, D-Va., said the legislation would ensure that the Medicare funding rural hospitals receive "is reflective of their costs of providing care." Kaine, speaking in the same press release, said the keeping of the status quo on Medicare reimbursement "places an undue burden on rural hospitals in economically disadvantaged areas."
Kathleen Heatwole, the vice president of planning and development for Augusta Health, said news of the legislation is welcomed at the hospital. She said the proposed national minimum wage index of 0.874 is higher than what the hospital now receives.
"This is very important to rural hospitals,'' said Heatwole of the proposed change. She said Medicare reimbursement is vital to hospitals. The federal health insurance program covers Americans age 65 and older.
Heatwole said when people age, the chronic conditions happen more often. "That is when you see heart failure, diabetes and things that require treatment,'' she said.
While the hospital has 10,000 to 12,000 in-patient admissions annually, the overall work with patients is much higher. "We have over 600,000 patient encounters a year,'' Heatwole said.
Heatwole also spoke of another fact. While rural hospitals now receive a lower Medicare reimbursement, she said they compete for staff nationally.
Action on the legislation could come later this year. In addition to Warner and Kaine, the bill attracted bipartisan support from such Republican senators as Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said Rachel Cohen, Warner's press secretary.
Cohen said the Republican senators signed on to the legislation because Medicare reimbursement "is a problem in all of their states."
