Resources and information
Post-budget advocacy to protect safety-net hospitals | May 2020
The 2020-2021 enacted state budget allows the Governor to make mid-year budget cuts, outside the usual legislative process. Advocates support the agenda of NYC Health + Hospitals to protect safety-net hospitals.
Hospital charity care funding | Spring 2019
For far too long, hospital indigent care pool funding – also referred to as hospital charity care funding – has been allocated in a way that does not tie the money to actual services to low-income people. As part of the 2018-19 state budget agreement, the NYS Department of Health hosted a workgroup to once again examine this issue and come up with a new way of allocating these public funds. DOH released the final report of the workgroup in February 2019. Community perspective on the workgroup and recommendations for action were then provided by the Commission on the Public’s Health System in a call to action.
NYC Health + Hospitals and the NYS Nurses Association presented proposals for how to correct this, working closely with consumer advocates as they developed their proposals. The proposal presented by H+H has been introduced by the Assembly and Senate Health Committee chairs (A.6677-A, Gottfried / S.5546, Rivera).
The bottom line is we need accountability and transparency in the way these public funds – which were intended to compensate hospitals for care to people on Medicaid and people who are uninsured – are allocated and spent. This funding must be allocated by the State to the facilities that meet the statutory definition of safety net hospitals, as well as other needy hospitals in communities across the state.
Materials:
- NYC Health + Hospitals / Community / Consumer Advocates flier in support of hospital charity care legislation (NYC Health + Hospitals; April 2019)
- Medicaid Matters memo in support of hospital charity care legislation (April 2019)
- Memo outlining provisions of the legislation (NYC Health + Hospitals; January 2019)
- Health Policy Webinar: Making Indigent Care Pool Funding Fair (NYC Health + Hospitals and community groups; January 2019)
- Call to action and recommendations in response to the NYS Indigent Care Pool Workgroup report (Commission on the Public’s Health System; February 2019)
- New York State Indigent Care Pool Workgroup report (NYS Department of Health, February 2019)
More information / reports:
- Unintended Consequences – How New York State Patients and Safety-Net Hospitals are Short-Changed (Community Service Society of NY; January 2018)
- Funding Charity Care in New York: An Examination of Indigent Care Pool Allocations (Roosa Tikkanen, MPH, MRes, for the NYS Health Foundation; March 2017)
- Paying New York State Hospitals More Fairly for Their Care to Uninsured Patients (Alan Sager, PhD, Boston University School of Public Health, for the Commission on the Public’s Health System; August 2011)