At the recent state hearing, hospital executives argued the facility fees are needed to help recoup losses from care they provide to uninsured patients and those enrolled in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Patrick McCabe, senior vice president of corporate finance at Yale-New Haven Health System said the system provided $500 million worth of “free care, charity care and under-reimbursed care” last year, which requires privately insured patients to make up the funding, according to the report.
However, patients receiving facility fee charges often don’t know why they have to pay the extra amount. Additionally, many patients don’t understand the facility fee breakdown provided to them. To address these issues, Deborah Chernoff, public policy director of the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199 of SEIU, called for “greater transparency and full disclosure about the nature and rationale for facility fees,” according the report.
Hospital facility fees have come under intense scrutiny in Connecticut in the past year. In November 2013, the state’s Attorney General George Jespen sent a letter to Connecticut hospital executives looking for several pieces of information regarding the fees, including the names and addresses of each off-campus, hospital-based provider that charges a facility fee. He also wanted information about why providers not charging the fee were doing so.
In April, Attorney General Jespen released a report asking lawmakers in Connecticut to propose legislation to address residents’ concerns with facility fees being charged by physician practices owned by hospitals.
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