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48 °F 5 Day Forecast Friday, November 28, 2003 --> Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | eSouthernOregon | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend August 31, 2003 Unpaid ER bills increase costs for paying patients Health insurance costs go up as hospitals are forced to pass on their losses to customers By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune When hospitals lose money in the emergency department, everybody pays. "Where we see it is in increased costs for hospitalization, increased costs for health care and increased costs for insurance," says Peg Crowley, director of Community Health Center, one of Jackson County’s safety net clinics. Just how much money hospitals lose in the ER is hard to say. Medical accounting procedures make it difficult to isolate one department of a hospital, and there have been no scientific studies of the true costs of emergency care, says Ken Rutledge, president of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Providence Medford Medical Center collects less than half of its charges for emergency care, says Chuck Wright, chief executive for Providence Health System’s Southern Oregon region. Wright says Providence Medford collected just 48.6 percent of its emergency room charges in 2002, and the pay rate fell to 46.9 percent during the first four months of 2003. Advertisement Unpaid bills and charity charge-offs for emergency care amount to substantial money. Rogue Valley Medical Center identified $3.4 million in unpaid bills and charity care for emergency patients during the eight months from October 2002 to June 2003, says hospital spokeswoman Andrea Jablonski. Wright and other hospital administrators say reimbursement from the federal Medicare and Medicaid (Oregon Health Plan) insurance programs doesn’t cover their costs of doing business. Patients who have no insurance often can’t afford to pay their bills, adding to the red ink. About 35,000 Jackson County residents — one in five — have no health insurance of any kind, says Crowley. Nearly 22,000 have health insurance through the Oregon Health Plan, which typically reimburses hospitals for less than half of their costs. Wright says hospitals traditionally tried to recover emergency-room losses in money-earning hospital departments such as surgery, but that option is closing as private surgery centers take a bigger share of the market. Hospitals have little choice but to pass the unpaid bills on to consumers in higher charges, Wright says. As hospital costs rise, the price of insurance climbs. Double-digit premium increases in recent years have forced employers to look for ways to hold down health-insurance costs. Crowley says employers share their higher costs with workers in the form of higher premiums, higher deductibles and fewer benefits. Small businesses are hit especially hard and sometimes have to drop their insurance programs, throwing more families into the ranks of the uninsured. There’s no incentive for a hospital to close its emergency department, despite the financial losses. Emergency rooms are typically the source of about 40 percent of all hospital admissions — many of whom have insurance, which makes them "paying" customers. Providing emergency medical care is also a fundamental part of most hospitals’ community service mission, Rutledge says. "Hospitals exist to serve their communities. The last thing they want to do is ship people out of their community for emergency care." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Real Estate Showcase Food for Thought Hike of the Week Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Openings Prime Times