CHICAGO | The Cook County Health and Hospital System reported a strong long-term outlook in its quarterly report to the County Board,
However, a short-term revenue shortfall -- which officials plan to cover by cutting overtime pay -- is bound to rankle some rank and file.
Management has committed to the CCHHS Board of Directors to reduce its overtime payments by July 2011, according to the report.
Sonia Vogel, spokesperson for John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, pointed out the line item for overtime pay won't change, and cuts are being made because overtime payments have been identified as over budget.
"We aren't cutting the overtime line item, only managing it better to bring it back in line with projections," Vogel said.
The revenue shortfall comes, in part, from difficulties in collecting Medicaid payments.
The report concludes the hospital was running efficiently on the whole, and the analysis of expenditures indicates the system is under budget in most expense categories."
The five-page report also shows how Medicaid-dependent the county is. Reimbursement from Medicaid dominates the analysis.
As of Nov. 30, 2010, the county submitted 10,676 eligibility applications to Medicaid. As of March 30, 2011, eligibility applications pending approval grew to 11,261, the report states.
The report also says the county is negotiating with Medicaid over its upper-payment limit, a subsidy given to some hospitals that accept Medicaid between what Medicaid pays and an allowable or upper-payment limit established by other payers.
The challenges faced by the county in implementing Medicaid are only the beginning, according to Ben Domenech, the health care expert for the libertarian think tank the Heartland Institute in Chicago.
"Any hospital that serves that population will feel the squeeze," he said.
Domenech said any hospital that accepts Medicaid will see significantly reduced reimbursements when the full force of the federal health care reforms kick in.
Kristina Rasmussen, executive vice president at the Illinois Policy Institute, said, "we're seeing many doctors drop Medicaid."
