CEOs of three Brooklyn hospital networks said hospitals in the borough are struggling due to lower reimbursement and a financially nonviable payer mix compared with their Manhattan counterparts, according to an op-ed in Crain's New York.
Richard Becker, MD, president and CEO of Brooklyn Hospital Center, Pamela S. Brier, president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center, and Wendy Goldstein, president and CEO of Lutheran HealthCare, penned the op-ed.
They said Brooklyn's well-insured patients have been "siphoned off to other places," leaving local hospitals with a high amount of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Additionally, Brooklyn hospitals are reimbursed significantly less than hospitals in Manhattan for the same procedures despite "good or better patient outcomes," according to the op-ed.
The leaders said the problem can be solved through the creation of a viable healthcare infrastructure, where hospitals and ambulatory sites are not fiscally punished for their location in an "outer borough," according to the op-ed. The leaders also pointed to New York's $10 billion federal Medicaid waiver request and urged Washington to approve it.
"It is time to turn from rancorous politics to rational policies — to shift from quixotic attempts to prop up failing institutions to a strategic use of state resources to create a sustainable healthcare model," they wrote.
Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn was on the brink of closure throughout the summer, but a court has put those closure plans on hold. Interfaith Medical Center, also in Brooklyn, was about to ask a bankruptcy court to allow it to close on Christmas, but the state has pledged $3.3 million to keep the hospital running and delayed the hearing on Interfaith's closure.
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