These 2 Middle Georgia hospitals are in danger of losing their government funding and failing

Georgia’s two U.S. senators have asked a Senate committee to extend federal funding for two more years for Georgia hospitals that serve a high number of low-income patients.

Without the funding, they say, the facilities are in danger of failing.

Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both Democrats, on Friday asked a committee to extend a waiver that gives Georgia hospitals status as “Disproportionate Share Hospitals.” These are facilities that serve a higher number of Medicaid and similar patients.

Several of the DSHs are at risk of losing eligibility and, with it, government funding.

Georgia is home to 51 hospitals that qualify as DSHs, 23 of which are “at risk,” or within a 2% margin of not qualifying for DSH status.

Of the 23 at-risk hospitals, two are in the Macon area — Piedmont Macon Medical Center and Houston Medical Center in Warner Robins.

Also on the list in Middle Georgia are Navicent Health Baldwin; R.J. Taylor Memorial Hospital in Hawkinsville, and Emanuel Medical Center in Swainsboro, according to the Georgia Hospital Association.

Spokespersons for the Macon area facilities were not immediately available for comment.

The 23 hospitals are at risk of not qualifying because Social Security applications are behind and the hospitals can’t claim the low-income patients on their cost reports as a result, the senators’ letter states.

The hospitals could lose their funding if the extension requested by Warnock and Ossoff does not pass. The senators expressed concerns in the letter that those hospitals could fail entirely if their federal funding stopped.

Warnock and Ossoff cited that three of the larger DSHs in Georgia “estimated more than $150 million in unpaid claims due to the backlog of Social Security Administration applications,” according to the letter. The delay means 1,600 low-income patients would be unaccounted for when the hospitals were considered for DSH status.

“Compounded by Georgia’s refusal to expand Medicaid, with 23 hospitals at risk of losing such eligibility, Georgia has the most hospitals in the country in jeopardy of losing status,” the senators’ letter states. “If these hospitals no longer qualify, we are deeply concerned about their ability to continue to operate. “

The waiver Warnock and Ossoff wished to extend was originally passed in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, the letter said. It would give Social Security the chance to “catch up” and let the hospitals keep their DSH status.

If the waiver granting the hospitals DSH status does not go through, the 23 at-risk hospitals would have funding until July — when they file their cost reports to Medicare — at which point they would be at risk of losing money depending on their updated patient reports.

This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 6:00 AM.