Empowering Health Care Consumers

By

Community Service Society of New York

Funding Area

Empowering Health Care Consumers

Date

January 23, 2018

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This NYHealth-funded report by Community Service Society of New York explores the impact of State reforms on the allocation of hospital charity care funding and the implications of cuts to the federal funding in 2018.

With millions of New Yorkers facing uncertainty in health care coverage and access to care, New York State will confront an enormous loss of federal Disproportionate Share Hospital funds that help hospitals provide care to the uninsured and low-income patients. These funds, primarily distributed through the State’s Indigent Care Pool, support hospitals for the care they provide to needy patients. In 2012, with these cuts looming, New York State changed the funding formula, which resulted in more than half a billion dollars being allocated away from struggling safety-net hospitals and going instead to hospitals serving a smaller proportion of needy patients.

The report offers recommendations for mitigating the coming federal cuts to charity care while reassessing how New York State allocates taxpayer funds intended to compensate hospitals for serving the neediest patients. It also includes hospital-specific data on all New York State hospitals receiving funds from the Indigent Care Pool.

$ 329 M The amount of money NYC Health + Hospitals is slated to lose in funding in 2018 because of federal cuts