The Arkansas Legislative Council approved more than $16 million to be dispersed to four hospitals in the state on Friday. The Fulton County Hospital in Salem is receiving $5 million. The ARPA money is funds the federal government sent to states so they can allocate it to organizations that were affected by COVID.
The Republican-led states that have refused to expand Medicaid are trying a variety of strategies to save struggling hospitals and cover more people. A decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states’ participation in Medicaid expansion was voluntary, the 10 holdouts (plus North Carolina, which recently approved expansion but hasn’t implemented it yet) account for most of the rural hospital closures over the past decade, according to the American Hospital Association.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will select up to eight states to participate in a new voluntary all-payer model. It aims to curb health care cost growth, improve population health, and advance health equity by reducing disparities in health outcomes. CMS plans to detail requirements for the States Advancing All-Payer Health Equity Approaches and Development Model in a funding opportunity notice this fall.
Neither Tarrant County nor its hospital district, JPS Health Network, pay for ambulance rides for inmates coming from the county’s jails. Instead, those bills go to the incarcerated people themselves — and the majority can’t or won’t pay. In all, MedStar is owed about $2.6 million from transports in 2022. To stop the bleeding, MedStar has been quietly lobbying Tarrant County and JPS to share the financial burden.
On Friday, a group of U.S. senators addressed the impending cuts to the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) program. If no action is taken before Oct. 1, the program faces $8 billion cuts, which could threaten access to care across the country. The already cash-strapped hospitals can’t afford it, and shouldn’t have to, the senators wrote.
Direct pay legislation offers a substantial leap forward for our state by streamlining the reimbursement process for ambulance service providers, alleviating undue financial burdens on patients. As chair of the state Assembly Commission on Rural Resources, I’m committed to making healthcare more accessible and efficient for all New Yorkers.
By signing this bill into law, Gov. Hochul can ensure that our ambulance providers receive the support they need to continue their vital work.