Officials at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center—which, since April 2013 has provided indigent care in the Baton Rouge market through a partnership with the state—are reeling from Tuesday’s announcement that the proposed 2016-2017 state budget doesn’t have enough money to continue funding the partnership.
In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, Department of Health and Hospitals Undersecretary Jeff Reynolds said the state’s $750 million budget gap will translate into $283 million in cuts to DHH, leaving only enough money to fund medical facilities in New Orleans and Shreveport—which house the state’s medical schools. OLOL, as well as facilities in Lafayette and several other markets, would be out in the cold.
OLOL President and CEO Scott Wester says without funding from the state, the hospital’s contract with the state—which not only provides for indigent care but also for graduate medical education—will automatically terminate.
“All 150 LSU doctors here will have to get off staff, and at all the LSU Health Baton Rouge clinics we’ll have to give the keys back to LSU and take our employees back,” Wester says. “The medical education programs will go away and no other state will be able to take all these residents, and the trauma center, and clinic and urgent care on Airline Highway in North Baton Rouge will be forced to close.”
Reynolds tells Daily Report the proposed cuts are a “worst-case scenario” that no one wants to see happen, adding he’s hopeful state lawmakers will find other places to cut or raise revenue, the latter of which could only happen in a special session later this year. He also says Gov. John Bel Edwards’ plan to expand Medicaid coverage, for which the state will receive federal dollars, could help alleviate some of the problems the proposed cuts would cause.
But Wester points out that many private doctors and clinics do not accept Medicaid, and that the majority of Medicaid patients end up seeking care in the LSU Health clinics that serve the uninsured, all of which will close if the cuts go through.
“What concerns me is that knowing we are about to expand Medicaid, the linchpin of that hinges on access to care on the ambulatory side,” he says. “Yet, all those LSU Health Clinics in this market would be forced to shut down. It would put tremendous pressure on the whole health care infrastructure in the market.”
Reynolds agrees that the entire market would feel the effects of the cuts, noting that “as those facilities shut down the remaining facilities would be bombarded by people seeking care … It’s not ideal but there’s not much choice for the department.”
With more than two months still to go in the legislative session, Wester says it is still very early in the process and he is hopeful other solutions can be found. But he is concerned, as one of the state’s partners in providing charity care, that he has yet to hear directly from the governor’s office or Division of Administration on an issue that would have staggering implications for the entire health care system in the Capital Region.
“I’m a little disappointed that we have not been notified by the governor’s office or DHH,” he says. “We have been working very closely with the Capital Region delegation and have a lot of data and research but we have not had an opportunity yet to share that yet with the officials at DHH or the administration.”
—Stephanie Riegel
