Washington hospitals took losses of more than $2 billion last year, but there’s a plan to help offset future losses.
The hospitals that provide 98% of the beds in our state say operational losses alone were $2.1 billion in 2022, some of it driven by inflation and rising wages, with investment losses pushing the total to more than $2.7 billion, but the Washington State Hospital Association says much of it is driven by Medicaid reimbursement rates for urban hospitals that have stayed the same for 20 years.
At rural hospitals like Forks Community Hospital, CEO Heidi Anderson says they rely on larger hospitals to have space for people who need greater care. Anderson says, “We’ve already seen what happens when those hospitals don’t have capacity. We end up caring for those patients. Sometimes they die in our facilities.”
With a financial situation the hospitals call “unsustainable”, WSHA’s Chelene Whiteaker says they’ve reached an agreement with state lawmakers for a “Medicaid directed payment program” most other states already have, where they tax themselves. Then, the state sends the money to the federal government, which sends it back with matching money for Medicaid patients. “For every dollar the hospitals are taxed or assessed,” Whiteaker says, “the federal government returns about two dollars.”
That would bring back about $1 billion dollars a year, but the hospital administrators say without more help, health care services are still in danger. WSHA also says that even though it won’t fill the entire loss gap, this plan would take a huge burden off the state in order to keep hospitals open and providing full services.
