Changes in health care funding will further squeeze Middle Georgia hospitals and likely force smaller, rural hospitals under the umbrella of regional hospitals such as The Medical Center of Central Georgia, health care consultant Fred Bayon said Tuesday.
Among the biggest challenges: Growing numbers of fat, aging people who will likely cost hospitals money. That’s bad news for hospitals, which are often among communities’ biggest employers. The Medical Center has about 4,000 employees and Coliseum Health System has 1,263 employees, according to the Macon Economic Development Commission.
Bayon, a senior principal with The Advisory Board Company, a Washington, D.C., research group, said hospitals will have to document high quality, make major investments and deal with growing numbers of obese baby boomers that are more likely to need hospitalization rather than profitable surgeries.
“We survive on surgeries. We survive on procedures,” Bayon told about 100 people, mostly from the medical center, in a talk sponsored by the Medcen Community Health Foundation. The organization raises money for the Medical Center.
Bayon told The Telegraph that hospitals will be challenged to cope with smaller increases in health insurance costs, prove the quality of care they’re providing and focus on preventing health problems. Those same problems for hospitals could be better for patients he said. But patients may also face rising co-pays and other costs even while the rate of increase in health-insurance premiums slows.
But while hospital revenues won’t increase as much, expenses may continue to increase quickly. Bayon warned that increasing numbers of Medicare and Medicaid patients won’t be paying for the full costs of their increasingly complex treatments. Meanwhile, hospitals will have to invest to compete on quality that they can document. Smaller hospitals are likely to merge into regional systems to get the help they need, he said.
Don Faulk, chief executive officer of the Medical Center, said his organization has been working on many of the things Bayon spoke of, such as a partnership with Peach County’s hospital. Faulk said he expects patients may be challenged to become more responsible, like how smokers often have to pay more for health insurance today.
“I think for patients the future’s going to mean change,” Faulk told The Telegraph. “As Americans, we are probably the fattest people on Earth; we drive the fastest, we shoot each other more.”
But the changes may also mean people both live longer and with a better quality of life, Faulk said.
To contact writer Mike Stucka, call 744-4251.
