Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's budget office says it's redistributing $14.1 million to help smaller, financially strapped hospitals in Connecticut.
The Office of Policy and Management announced on Friday that six hospitals will receive the extra payments. They include Bristol, Charlotte Hungerford, Day Kimball, Johnson and Milford hospitals.
Day Kimball officials announced on Thursday that they will be cutting 23 full-time positions and said on Friday that they will still be cutting jobs.
Robert Smanik, president and CEO of Day Kimball, said in a statement that reallocation
will bring a “much needed and welcome relief” but it only covers about a third of the $9 million budget gap and the hospital will still be cutting jobs.
“So while the restoration of most of the small hospital funding will help, it is not enough to prevent the need for DKH to move forward with the cuts to our staffing and operations that were announced yesterday. We must continue on that course in order to ensure that we can continue to provide high quality health care to Northeastern Connecticut,” the statement says.
The funding is from the first-quarter Medicaid reimbursement payments the state had not yet released to the state's 28 hospitals. It's unclear whether the larger hospitals will receive money for Medicaid expenses they've already incurred.
“We know that hospitals are not one-size-fits all, and that’s why we’re proactively reprioritizing and reallocating dollars to support small hospitals that need support most. To be clear, hospital systems are seeing extraordinary revenues, but today we’re working to reprioritize and reallocate payments so we can assist the small hospitals and support patient care. The six small hospitals we are helping today lost millions in FY2014, and we’re proactively working to support them. The other 15 larger hospital systems made in excess of $900 million,” OPM Secretary Ben Barnes said in a statement. “With such discrepancies between large and small hospitals – between those who are making hundreds of millions of dollars per year and those that aren’t – we are trying to help those small hospitals serving our Medicaid population.”
Bristol will receive $2,917,675, Day Kimball will receive $2,777,203, Griffin will receive $3,315,317, Hungerford will receive $2,051,467, Johnson will receive $2,301,469 and Milford will receive $736,870,
“Today the Governor has reversed himself and decided to restore less than six percent of his cuts to hospitals. This is simply a political smoke screen to cover up and divert attention from the devastating $190 million in cuts he unveiled two weeks ago. Let’s be clear: This is a Band-Aid on a bone-deep wound,” Jennifer Jackson, CEO of the Connecticut Hospital Association said in a statement. “The people of Connecticut understand what the Governor is doing, and won’t stand silently by while the Governor harms patients and undermines Connecticut's healthcare system.”
An OPM spokesman said Malloy's mid-year $63.4 million cut in future hospital payments still stands.
