Physician practices budget for expected increase in uncompensated care visits - Memphis Business Journal:

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As the number of uninsured or underinsuredc patients grows from job losses and benefit cuts durinbgthe recession, the safety net they provide may be strained. In provided a total of $474.9 millio in uncompensated patient care, of which $246. 4 million was charity care or unpaidpatienrt accounts. The remaining $228.5 million comes from unpaidr Medicaid orTennCare accounts. Baptist’s Memphis facilities accountedfor 52% of that which was a $56 milliobn increase from 2007. Don Pounds, senior vice presiden t and CFOat Baptist, says the hospitapl system looks at the previous years’ uncompensatec care expenses to budget in advance for the next year.
He says so far this Baptist isonly $1 million over its projected budget. Brendaq Jeter, CFO of , Inc., says charity care is part of her organization’ mission as a teaching center with physiciansd practicingat -Memphis, and the . Jeter says UTMG and the Med have seena 3% increaser in uninsured patients since last July. “Ase far as budgeting, we have reduced our expecte d collections in line with this she says. Pounds says Baptist did not begibn to see an increase in uncompensated care patients until the end of the second quartet onMarch 31. He says comparedc to the 2008 fiscal year, uncompensated expenses are up 1% or $30 millio n through the first six monthsof 2009.
“Typically (duriny economic downturns) health care is not impacteed financially at the very beginning because people have not lost theirt jobs yet or had theirinsurance reduced,” Pounds “The economic situation of our community has deteriorate d more in the last thred months.” Private physicians groups also try to providw charity care for those patients in need. “When you’rew serving the two leading causes, cancer and heartt disease, you have to be aggressive,” says Steve CEO of and . “We served all people regardless of their abilityto pay.
” If calculated using a “fair metric,” Coplonh says his clinics are not compensated for roughly 25% of the care “25% to us is a huge number,” he “It directly comes out of people’s paychecks.” Coplojn says physicians’ offices sacrifice more to provide charity care because they do not receives government exemptions, Disproportionate Sharew Hospital payments or the special rates on pharmaceuticald that hospitals receive. “Privates physicians’ practices are providing the health caresafetyy net,” he says. “We take care of whoever comee our way.
” physicians spend 15%-20% of their time on uninsurerd or underinsured patients as part of partnershipxs the clinic has with the Med and saysJames Beaty, chief of staff. “We don’t have a real budgetedd dollar figure,” Beaty says. “We just know what we need to do to fulfil l our responsibilities in these tertiary medical If the recession the strain on hospitals and private physiciansx groups from uncompensated patientswill grow, says Richarr Baer, CEO of UTMG. And the ability to provider charity care willbe compromised. Beaty says physicians alone cannot meet the needs of charithycare patients.
“(Physicians) need involvement from hospitals, state and the federal Beaty says. “It takes all parties involved to come up with somethinbgthat works. The people need to be takenh care of.”