Cook County’s prime well being official stated Tuesday the county can’t maintain offering well being care with no reimbursement, sounding the alarm on an issue so extreme that funding for charity care is predicted to expire subsequent 12 months lengthy earlier than the 12 months is over.
At a finances deal with earlier than the Cook County Board of Commissioners Tuesday, Cook County Health CEO Dr. John Jay Shannon stated there’s “no question” that the largest problem to the well being system’s success subsequent 12 months goes to be assembly the demand for uncompensated care as a result of individuals “naturally gravitate” to the county well being system once they lack insurance coverage.
“We don’t have the ability to print money to pay for the services that we do,” Shannon stated.
For fiscal 12 months 2020, the county expects uncompensated care — medical providers the county offers however for which it isn’t paid — to develop to about $590 million.
That quantity is predicted to proceed to develop as a result of cash the county receives from federal funds from packages such because the Disproportionate Share Hospital and the Benefits Improvement and Protection Act aren’t maintaining with the charity care the well being system is legally required to offer.
The county’s well being operation offers a better proportion of charity care than others within the state, Shannon stated.
The CEO additionally stated for 2019, the well being system spent $1 million a day in bills akin to salaries, gear and provides linked to offering that charity care. If it continues on that tempo, in 2020 the well being system might run out of funding for its charity care providers by September. The well being system can be slashing 638 positions, with 447 of these coming from the ambulatory providers part of the well being system.
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“As we contemplate how we go forward, the challenge that we have is a challenge at a policy level at, frankly, the state and the federal level: Are we going to find a way to get universal coverage for health care? Until we find that way, people, as you can see, naturally gravitate toward the health system,” Shannon stated.
“And as you can also see, and we’ve got plenty of data to support this, other hospitals in the county clearly are discharging people today who have stabilized but who do not have insurance for follow-up care to Cook County, and so they look at us as the solution and that’s not right and we don’t have the funding for it.”
Revenue from the county’s managed-care program CountyCare has helped. As membership continues to develop, the well being system might even see a rise in its income however that each one is determined by how briskly Medicaid purposes could be processed on the state.
Shannon stated the system gained’t flip anybody away, however the financial impact might imply delays, docs not having the required gear for procedures and “tough choices,” which might embrace evaluating whether or not providers could be supplied.
While making the rounds together with her proposed finances earlier this month, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle additionally voiced issues concerning the quantity of uncompensated care, saying there was no “magic wand” to repair the “fiscal challenge.”
“If I had a magic wand I’d fix it,” Preckwinkle stated. “How we’re going to [address uncompensated care] is complicated and difficult and it’s truly something we’re going to work on this year.”
Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, referred to as the state of affairs “scary” and stated it might drive individuals who want care to attend till the well being system can determine the way to present it.
Shannon referred to as {that a} “classic dilemma.”
At a speech earlier than the City Club Monday, Shannon stated the finances he’d current Tuesday could be the “most challenging” of the budgets he’s dropped at the board in his six years as the pinnacle of the well being system.
“At the end of the day, I would submit that this is a moral challenge for the country,” Shannon stated….