Hospitals of every stripe have opened obstetrics emergency departments. They come with a requirement that patients with pregnancy or postpartum medical concerns be seen quickly by a qualified provider, which can be important in a real emergency. But it also means healthy patients like Huffner get bills for emergency care they didn’t know they got.
Grants, loans, and other assistance intended to help hospitals and doctors remain solvent went disproportionately to wealthy hospitals that did not need the money as urgently as independent practices and struggling rural hospitals did.
Fitch expects profitability to recede in fiscal 2022 as children's hospitals have not been immune to the staffing shortages pressuring the overall healthcare industry. With labor challenges likely to persist, children's hospitals are expected to implement base rate increases, bonus incentives and additional benefits similar to their adult counterparts to recruit and retain staff, ultimately compressing profitability metrics.
Meet Amerigroup. It’s a Fortune 500 company that manages state-run health plans for low-income people. Its subsidiaries also have a history of fines and allegations over the handling of patients in multiple states. Amerigroup is now set to get back part of the District's $1.5 billion Medicaid contract.
