Urban hospitals not fond of Scott’s latest plan

Group of Florida hospitals points to ‘harmful impacts.’

TALLAHASSEE — A group of Florida urban hospitals said Gov. Rick Scott’s outline for obtaining more federal money for health care providers in the state would cost them millions of dollars, even as the plan drew admonitions of caution from the Obama administration Friday.

Scott’s Agency for Health Care Administration has proposed using state and local dollars to draw additional federal matching funds for hospi- tals treating Medicaid patients.

In Scott’s view, the added funding could help hospitals offset the federal government’s earlier announced plan to limit their payments from the low income pool (LIP) to $1 billion — less than half the almost $2.2 billion available last year from the state, federal and locally funded program.

But the state’s Safet y Net Hospital Alliance of Florida said the governor’s proposal hits them hard, while steering additional dollars to for-profit hospitals.

Urban hospitals treating most of Florida’s indigent patients would lose $302 million, the alliance said. For-profit hospitals, which the alliance said include many headquartered outside Florida, would gain an additional $100 million in payments through the governor’s plan.

“While we appreciated Governor Scott’s recent unsuccessful efforts to retain current levels of LIP funding, we are disappointed to see that his proposal targets safet y net hospitals and could literally put some out of business,” said Tony Carvalho, SNHAF’s president. “We are urging the governor and his team to re-evaluate the harmful impacts of this proposed redistribution.”

But Scott’s communications director, Jackie Schutz, said Friday eve- ning, “Only a handful of hospitals would lose money as a result of reducing the funding that their record profit margins show they could not afford. This group totals only around $60 million in losses.”

The Scott administration plan entails paying higher rates to hospitals for patients they treat under the state’s Medicaid managed care system rather than just re- imbursing the hospital through LIP for people without coverage. Existing state and local payments then would draw more federal dollars.

With Florida lawmakers set to begin a special session Monday on health care and writing a state budget for the 201516 year, the Obama administration also tapped the brakes on the governor’s proposal to draw additional federal dollars.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it continues to review the governor’s plan. But CMS said it is still analyzing how it would affect health care providers and whether it will work for long.

CMS has already told Scott that LIP will be further reduced to $600 million in 2016-17. Any proposal from Scott should also account for how the state plans to handle that lost aid to hospitals and other providers, CMS said.

“CMS is reviewing the proposal and public comments, and working to understand the implications of the letter as well as the viabilit y and sustainabilit y of the proposed funding mechanism,” said Ben Wakana, a spokesman for the federal Department of Health and Human Services.