NYC Health & Hospitals curtails hiring in wake of DSH cuts
NYC Health & Hospitals is taking drastic steps to offset a delay in Medicaid disproportionate-share funding.
To cope with the funding gap, totaling $380 million, the 11-hospital health system will fill just 25% of the 250 to 300 jobs that typically become available each month, interim CEO Stanley Brezenoff wrote in a letter to employees. The city had already been rehiring for only half of open positions under its cost-savings plan to avoid a $1.8 billion deficit by fiscal 2020.
DSH and upper payment level supplemental Medicaid payments account for about a third of the system’s $8 billion operating budget, according to Brezenoff.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not distributed the funding from fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30, in response to federal cuts that took effect for the current year on Oct. 1. New York stands to lose $330 million this year and $1.1 billion in the next 18 months, according to the state.
Cuomo said last week that the state was holding onto the money while it determined a fair way to distribute it. Deciding how to do that could require a special session of the state Legislature, he said.