LSU is burning through reserves to fund its Shreveport medical school doctors and residents because the research foundation operating the state’s safety net hospitals is months behind on its payments, the university’s president tells The USA Today Network of Louisiana.
“It’s more worrisome now than it has been in the past five years because they’re working off the backs of our revenues and our reserves, and it puts us in a fiscally unstable environment,” F. King Alexander said today in an editorial board interview.
BRF operates safety net hospitals in Monroe and Shreveport in conjunction with the LSU Health medical school. But last week LSU and the state issued termination notices to BRF, the first step in the possible removal of the partner. Gov. John Bel Edwards wants to use the termination notice to jump-start negotiations with BRF on a new contract and perhaps secure Ochsner Health System of New Orleans to bridge the relationship between LSU and the foundation.
BRF hasn’t denied it’s in arrears with LSU, but blames the state for what it considers slow payments to the foundation. State government, through the Louisiana Department of Health, must pay BRF to operate hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe.
