FEDS GAVE $28K TO HEALTH PROVIDERS
Bulk of local funds went to St. Joseph Health system
Area health care providers have received over $28 million through an initial distribution of federal funds.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act secured $175 billion in relief funds for hospitals and health care providers, of which $28,810,095 has gone to 69 Humboldt County health care providers so far, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The initial allocation was really to help with direct COVIDrelated expenses,” North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman told The Times-Standard. “For instance we knew hospitals had to build tents and other facilities to do intake and in some cases segregate COVID patients. … There were all of these unanticipated and sudden costs and the initial help we provided, to hospitals at least, was mainly for that.”
Changes were also made to the way Medicare gets reimbursed, Huffman said, including raising reimbursement rates during the crisis and giving health care providers the ability to draw advances for providing Medicare services.
“It normally works the other way around,” he said. “Hospitals provide care and spend a long time trying to get paid for it.”
Amounts range from less than $100 going to pharmacists and therapists to $23,861,160 going to St. Joseph Health Northern California LLC, which includes several hospitals outside of the county such as Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and Queen of the Valley Medical Center as well as Fortuna’s Redwood Memoria and St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka.
St. Joseph Health in Humboldt County had a 65% decline in surgeries, a 35% “decline in visits to the Emergency Department and a substantial decline in hospital admissions” that led to “a multi-million dollar drop in revenue needed to support ongoing operations and investment in technology and infrastructure,” St. Joseph Health spokesperson Christian Hill wrote in an email.
“The CARES Act funding has provided some measure of temporary financial support for operations due to the reductions in patient volume over the course of this pandemic,” Hill wrote. “These federal funds also help support ongoing safety protocols that remain in effect as our hospitals thoughtfully and safely expand non-COVID-19 care.”
Even with the funding and “under the most optimistic projections,” Hill wrote that the health care network isn’t expecting its operations to return to
normal “until late summer at the earliest.”
“Like many hospitals across the country, until patient volumes support pre-COVID staffing levels, we are pursuing a variety of ways to address the ‘new normal’ in health care and to ensure the long-term sustainability of our hospitals,” Hill wrote.
St. Joseph Health spokespeople were unavailable by publication time to further elaborate on how much of those funds would remain in the county.
Besides the $23,861,160 received by St. Joseph Health Northern California LLC and $1,669,179 going to St. Joseph Home Care Network, 67 of the county’s health care providers received $3,279,756.
Of that roughly $3 million, $1,000,222 went to the four Brius-owned nursing homes and Hospice of Humboldt received $502,938.
Southern Humboldt received $445,497; $18,526 went to the Redwoods Rural Health Center in Redway, $417,330 went to the Southern Humboldt Community Hospital District that operates the Jerold
Phelps Community Hospital in Garberville and $9,641 went to Ther-A-Con Physical Therapy in Garberville.
The Arcata-Mad River Ambulance received $53,801 and City Ambulance of Eureka received $178,414.
The rest of the funds went to a mix of dermatologists, therapists, anesthesiologists, optometrists, physical therapists, medical centers, pharmacists and a variety of individual providers.
Huffman said there’s not enough oversight currently in place to ensure funds aren’t misallocated and misspent, but the House of Representatives passed a rule that gives it the ability to hold remote hearings to address those concerns.
Congress is currently working on another coronavirus relief package that makes health care providers a focal point, Huffman said.
“We’re trying to push a lot more funding their way,” he said.
The House bill, that’s expected to see a partisan House vote Friday night, includes $3 trillion in aid to prop up the U.S. economy. The enormous measure drafted by House Democrats would cost more than the prior four coronavirus bills combined. It would deliver almost $1 trillion for state and local governments, another round of $1,200 direct payments to most individuals, and help for housing payments, the Postal Service and holders of college debt.
“Like many hospitals across the country, until patient volumes support pre-COVID staffing levels, we are pursuing a variety of ways to address the ‘new normal’ in health care and to ensure the long-term sustainability of our hospitals.” — Christian Hill, spokesperson for St. Joseph Health