Decertify Critical Access Hospitals for Cost Containment???

Critical Access Hospital's deliver urgently needed care to rural populations in Wisconsin.  Critical Access Hospitals are Medicare certified with ER service available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.   Usually no more than 25 inpatient beds with an average length of stay no more than 96 hours for an acute need.  These hospitals move the patients with more complex needs to the larger hospital setting.  Critical Access Hospitals receive a higher level of Medicare reimbursement.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General has recommended The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) begin to reassess and decertify many Critical Access Hospitals due to location requirements.  This activity means Medicare reduces the out flow of money.  The act of decertifying Critical Access Hospitals will increase risk reserve Medicare funds. 

Current regulatory guidelines call for removing the Critical Access Hospital designation for any hospital within 10 miles of another hospital.  This will be a large deficit for the rural hospitals annual budget.  A larger portion of the rural Wisconsin hospital's total population served will have Medicare as a pay source.  This subtracts more money per individual Medicare claim being reimbursed to the hospital. 

Removing this money from a small rural hospitals annual budget will result in the loss of service to the community.  The measure to decertify Critical Access Hospitals turns a blind eye to the fiscal techniques utilized to maintain a safe level of health delivery in the rural Wisconsin setting.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin has pushed legislative action to help rural hospitals minimize this approaching change.   Home Care Path encourages readers to continue to follow this issue as it unfolds. 

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