MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont health care regulators on Friday completed their review of Vermont hospital budgets, voting on the budgets for the state’s 14 hospitals.
Green Mountain Care Board officials say Vermonters are paying too much for health care, and through budgetary enforcement, they’re hoping to change that.
Most hospitals’ revenue caps, commercial insurance reimbursement rates, and operating expenses were approved at or just below what they submitted. But the UVM Medical Center was a major exception. The hospital was hoping to make 2.3 percent more from their services than they did last year, but the GMCB ruled that they’ll be getting reimbursed 7 percent less than they did last year. On top of that, the board ruled that the revenue they earn must be $88 million less than they requested.
GMCB Chair Owen Foster says the decision was due, in part, to the UVM Health Network’s decision to reimburse New York hospital expenses with UVMMC’s earnings.
“What we ended up doing was — UVM Health Network and the Medical Center’s budget actually budgeted $16 million to be taken from the Medical Center for New York again. And so we actually further reduced their commercial rate by that $16 million so that the medical center wouldn’t be giving it to New York,” Foster said.
One surprise is that UVMMC’s operating expenses were only dinged by $500,000, a drop in the bucket. Regulators had been demanding the hospital rein in spending, but did not do much enforcement on that this year.
