Medicare and Medicaid programs paid for more than half of all patient days at Colorado hospitals in 2005, fresh evidence that taxpayers are increasingly picking up the tab for health care at hospitals.
Data to be released today by the Colorado Health and Hospital Association show Medicare and Medicaid combined to pay for 52 percent of patient hospital days in Colorado – the highest percentage ever reported for the state by the association.
“It’s about the norm” with other states, said Jim Hertel, a health-care consultant and publisher of the Colorado Managed Care newsletter.
The percentage is up from 2004 when the two programs combined to pay for 49.3 percent of patient hospital days in Colorado; in 2000, it was 44.3 percent.
The report, “Hospital Charges & Average Length of Stay 2005,” includes data from 53 hospitals statewide in that portion of the report.
However, those statistics for 2005 do not include 14 hospitals that declined to provide data for that portion of the survey. That could skew the percentage of Medicare and Medicaid patient days, said Marty Arizumi, the association’s vice president of public affairs.
In 2004, three hospitals declined to provide data for that portion.
Medicare, a federal program that covers people over age 65, paid for 34.2 percent of patient days statewide last year. Medi caid, a program for the poor that is equally funded by the state and federal taxpayers, picked up the tab for 17.8 percent of patient days, the report showed.
The balance of patient days are paid by private insurance, individual payments and other forms of payment such as workers’ compensation.
The government programs, especially Medicaid, do not fully cover the costs for hospital stays. As a result, hospitals are forced to shift the financial burden to private-paying patients and employers through higher insurance premiums, said Stuart Guterman, director of the Medicare’s Future program at the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington, D.C., foundation.
“People with health insurance are paying for people that don’t have coverage,” Guterman said. “What threatens the financial status of hospitals is the number of people who are uninsured.”
There are an estimated 46 million uninsured Americans. That includes about 767,000 people in Colorado, or 17 percent of the state population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rural areas, in particular, face higher doctor turnover, longer waits by patients and financial uncertainty for some hospitals, said Russ Johnson, chief executive of the San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center in Alamosa.
Johnson said Medicaid reimburses the hospital about 38 cents on the dollar; the Colorado Indigent Care Program reimburses 14 cents on the dollar; and those without insurance pay about 9 cents for each dollar charged.
“We struggle with it every day,” Johnson said. “In an urban setting, a lot of hospitals don’t accept Medicaid.”
Some metro-area hospitals were in the single digits in terms of Medicaid patient days.
Among the lowest in the state: Sky Ridge Medical Center (2.2 percent) in Lone Tree; Swedish Medical Center (4.9 percent) in Englewood; and Exempla St. Joseph (5.6 percent) in Denver.
Some other metro-area hospitals are designated as “disproportionate-share hospitals” because they treat a higher-than-usual percentage of Medicare or Medicaid patients.
Those hospitals, which include Platte Valley Medical Center in Brighton and Denver Health Medical Center, receive federal grants to help offset low payments.
Denver Health had 37 percent of its patient days paid for by Medicaid; Platte Valley had 21.5 percent, the report showed.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-820-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
