Sudden end of federal Medicaid project cuts adult psychiatric inpatient hospital capacity

MOBILE, Ala. - April 22, 2015 - PRLog -- AltaPointe Health Systems haslearned that a three-year demonstration project funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in Washington, DC, ended April 13, two and a half months earlier than expected. The project, called the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration (MEPD), provided funding for treating Medicaid adults in free-standing psychiatric hospitals, something previously prohibited by federal law.

Since 2012, AltaPointe has been receiving approximately $2 million annually from this CMS program that covered most of the cost of Medicaid adult inpatient, psychiatric hospital services at its BayPointe Hospital in Mobile and EastPointe Hospital in Daphne.

“AltaPointe received no prior notice that funding would end,” Tuerk Schlesinger, AltaPointe CEO, said Tuesday. “We want partner hospitals to understand this isn’t a decision made by AltaPointe Health Systems.”

According to the CMS, AltaPointe’s free-standing psychiatric hospitals can no longer accept Medicaid patients under the demonstration. In addition to emergency stabilization services, the project ensured enhanced coordination of post-acute care and extensive data collection to help identify best practices and gaps in care.

“This funding change will affect hundreds of patients a year,” Schlesinger said Tuesday. “These individuals are so sick that they are at risk of harming themselves or others. With the diminished bed capacity in our hospitals, local acute care hospital emergency departments will likely see an increase in adult Medicaid patients seeking treatment for psychiatric emergencies.”

The demonstration project was due to end June 30. “We had plans to gradually close beds if a federal bill that would extend this project for another three years did not pass,” Schlesinger said. “The premature end of the demonstration has put us in a critical situation.”

Schlesinger was referring to bill S.599 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/599), which has been read on the floor of the US Senate and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance. If it passes, the bill would extend and expand the MEPD across the country.

“AltaPointe already provides nearly $8 million in unreimbursed inpatient hospital services each year,” Schlesinger said. “This represents 25 percent of patients who are indigent, meaning they have absolutely no way to pay. An additional 38 percent of patients have Medicaid only. As you can see, a hit from such a large payer as Medicaid will affect our ability to serve this significant number of indigent patients.

“AltaPointe will responsibly handle this cut,” Schlesinger continued. “However, no longer having this reimbursement means we will have to moderately scale back our operations so that we do not put our entire system of care at risk.”

Schlesinger said the patients affected by this situation are some of our community’s most vulnerable residents. “They struggle to function in society and support themselves financially. It is a tragedy that this loss of reimbursement will have such a negative impact on this population.”