Delay Costs AMC Nursing Home, Emergency Rooms

    Federal delays stretching back more than a year cost Adirondack Medical Center emergency rooms and one of its nursing homes $216,000 in state-approved Medicaid reimbursement in 2007, a Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) analysis has found.
    The breakdown represents a $160,000 shortfall for AMC's skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Lake Placid, and a $56,000 shortfall for the medical center's emergency rooms located in Lake Placid and Saranac Lake.
    The reimbursement, which includes an increase in the emergency room (ER) Medicaid rate and a "rebasing" of nursing home Medicaid payments, was passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by the Governor in March 2006 as part of the 2006-2007 state budget agreement. The payment changes were then sent to the federal government as required for review and approval. So far, however, after more than a year of delays, the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has failed to approve them.
    "Given the financial challenges we have had to overcome in the past year, it is particularly troubling that the federal government is choosing a course of action, or rather inaction, that threatens our ability to continue providing the quality care our patients and residents deserve," said Chandler Ralph, President & CEO of AMC.
    The new rates were to take effect January 1, 2007. Total payments that should have been dispersed in the state since then equal $51 million for ERs and $138 million for nursing homes, for a total of $189 million.

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