The investment, projected to cost $20 million across the 19 hospitals, will come from South Carolina’s Medicaid disproportionate share hospital program. Since no new funds are being added to the DSH program, the rural hospitals’ charity care will be covered from funds that would have gone to larger, more financially stable organizations. Previously, the program distributed payments to all hospitals equally regardless of how many Medicaid and uninsured patients were treated.
“We’ve long known that rural hospitals face challenges that larger hospitals don’t, and now, for the first time ever, the state of South Carolina is going to treat them that way,” Gov. Haley said in a release.
Last year, South Carolina’s DSH program allocated $461 million in taxpayer-supported Medicaid funds. The DSH program covered roughly 57 percent of uncompensated care at all hospitals across the state.
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