Florida hospitals are contemplating the future following CMS' recent announcement that hospitals in the state will no longer be able to depend on federal funds for the Low Income Pool, which are used to pay for the uninsured, according to a Jackson County Floridan report.
Eliot Fishman, director of the Medicaid division of CMS, said in a Health News Florida report that the LIP program will not continue in its present form when it expires in June. According to the report, Mr. Fishman also noted that there is funding available from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is aimed at replacing LIP "and other older ways to cover indigent healthcare," but Florida has yet to incorporate that.
If the LIP program does expire as anticipated, Florida hospitals could stand to lose almost $1.5 billion per year, according to a Sun-Sentinel report.
In the Jackson County Floridan report, Campbellton-Graceville (Fla.) Hospital Administrator H.D. Cannington said the hospital would be put "in very bad shape, as would every hospital that cares for such patients" if the funding does ultimately go away.
"We have to look for some ways to make up for that money we had been getting if it does end. We will cross that bridge when we come to it — the money we're receiving from last fiscal year won't end until August, but I feel like it's going to have to come from some non-payee sources outside Medicaid and Medicare," he told the publication.
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