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BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Quality health care, affordable health care, and accessible health care. Many of those in the industry say you can’t have all three.
“All the focus in Vermont right now is only on affordability, and I don’t think that’s gonna get us where we’re trying to get to,” said Dr. Stephen Leffler, President of the University of Vermont Medical Center.
“Affordability is also access. When people can’t afford health care, they don’t access health care,” said Chair of the Green Mountain Care Board Owen Foster.
On Friday, UVMMC announced they’re suspending the building of a new surgical center due to what they describe as the regulatory GMCB‘s imposed budget constraints.
The GMCB says they’re trying to achieve patient affordability through regulation, but UVMMC says the board’s efforts impede access and increase wait times. In a press release, they say quote, “the GMCB penalized UVM Medical Center for meeting increased demand and providing more care to patients.”
“[For] the medical center to stay within our budget [with] $100 million expenses—there’s no possible way to reduce that without providing less care,” said Dr. Leffler.
“We disagree with that… when UVM has said they’re gonna have to cut services because of board decisions—access actually went up,” said Foster.
UVMMC tells us they made $80 million in revenue in 2023. A hospital’s revenue is based on how much they are charging their patients. It’s different than their $60 million profit margin.
The GMCB reviewed UVMMC’s final margins and found that the hospital had underbudgeted government payer revenue and overbudgeted expenses, which made commercial insurance rates higher in 2023.
GMCB says UVMMC received additional funds from its graduate medical education program, changes in its federal designation, and its New York network hospitals that it did not disclose in its budget or during the fiscal year.
“In other years, they’ve allowed our revenue target to exceed what we expected because they understood it was for more patients this year, they’re handling it a little differently,” said Leffler.
The GMCB is now requiring the hospital to lower its procedure prices for patients. That will in turn decrease the hospital’s revenue, kicking the outpatient surgery center project down the road.
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