Humboldt General Hospital board members have made several changes to the Charity Care program in an effort to rein in costs.
HGH has written off over $1 million since the charity care program began a year ago with the goal of reducing out-of-pocket hospital costs to individuals with family income under 400 percent of the poverty level.
"I think it's a great program and want to make sure it's sustainable," said board member Kevin Chatfield. "I don't want to see it go away but I don't want to see it run away, either."
HGH CEO Jim Parrish has reported to the board each month on the amount of charity care writeoffs.
Changes to the policy have been discussed at the last several board meetings because the write-off appeared to be growing each month. There were several months with totals around $200,000 to $300,000.
The last couple of months, Charity Care writeoffs have been much lower, possibly due to more low-income individuals being accepted by the Medicaid program. However, until they're sure what the trend will be, board members decided to pull in the program a little.
Hospital CFO Sandy Lehman made several recommendations, including limiting charity care discounts to Humboldt County residents. Since city and county residents pay taxes that provide a small percentage of the hospital's support, the board felt limiting benefits to Humboldt County residents made sense. That move would reduce the program by about $100,000, said Lehman.
About 8 percent of the Charity Care discounts have been going to patients who do not live or pay taxes in Humboldt County.
Another change will lower the income limit from 400 to 300 percent of the poverty level and will give a 100 percent writeoff only to the 0-100 percent of poverty income level. The 101 to 200 percent of poverty level bracket will get a 75 percent write off.
"I think one of the concerns board members had is that we're giving charity care to people who are making pretty good money," Parrish said.
The program will be limited to legal residents of the U.S.
Lehman also suggested the provision that automatically eliminated an individual's hospital bills if they declared bankruptcy be removed and the provision limiting hospital writeoffs to "medically necessary" services add "as defined by Medicare."
There was some discussion of putting a cap on the amount of money that could be written off for a year but the board declined to take that step. The board unanimously accepted Lehman's recommendations; the changes are already in effect.
Contact Joyce Sheen at j.sheen@winnemuccapublishing.net.[[In-content Ad]]
