Cuts to Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital allotments under the ACA took effect Oct. 1. As a result, Missouri hospitals collectively will see a $157 million reduction in federal funding this fiscal year, said Missouri Hospital Association spokesperson Dave Dillon, according to a Columbia Missourian report.
Here are six things to know.
1. Medicaid DSH payments help compensate hospitals that provide care to a large number of poor and uninsured patients.
2. Congress has delayed the cuts multiple times in recent years. America's Essential Hospitals members and others urged lawmakers to do the same in 2017. However, Congress did not take action, and the cuts took effect. The annual cut is slated to start at $2 billion in fiscal year 2018, with total cuts over eight years reaching $43 billion.
3. Medicaid DSH payments are particularly crucial for hospitals in other states that did not expand Medicaid, according to the report.
4. The Columbia Missourian reported 120 Missouri hospitals received the payments in fiscal year 2013 — the most recent year available on Medicaid.gov — with Fulton State Hospital receiving $80.6 million, the most out of any other facility.
5. Jennifer Coffman, spokesperson for Columbia, Mo.-based MU Health Care, told the publication the organization won't be affected by the impending cuts.
6. However, Missouri hospitals that are affected are slated to lose $2.2 billion in Medicaid DSH funds through fiscal year 2025, MHA President and CEO Herb Kuhn wrote last fall, according to the report.
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