Reports Question Uncompensated Care Billing, Charity Care Problems at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

1199SEIU members have been deeply engaged in the Healthcare Reform debate in Massachusetts and across the county.  As part of our work, we recently released a report on Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's (BIDMC) billing of the Uncompensated Care Pool for emergency bad debt and their higher than average emergency room costs. These issues, if unaddressed, threaten the stability of the Uncompensated Care Pool. This Pool is meant to fund subsidized health insurance plans and as a safety net for those who remain uninsured. If a particular hospital is depleting the Pool, this has serious repercussions for everyone in Massachusetts, particularly low income patients. The report demonstrates the following:

• BIDMC appears to have the most expensive E.R. costs for uninsured patients covered by the Commonwealth’s Uncompensated Care Pool (UCP) fund;
• BIDMC  billed Emergency Bad Debt at an abnormally high rate to the UCP in possible contradiction of UCP regulations.

Disturbed by the findings in this report, a group of community organizations signed onto a letter to the BIDMC board, asking for a meeting to remedy these issues.

The members of 1199SEIU also released a report which raises concerns about BIDMC's reporting practices regarding care for the uninsured.  This report shows that:

• BIDMC’s charity care reporting to government agencies and to the public appears to be misleading and incomplete;
• BIDMC revised its stated un-reimbursed charity care figures down 30% in 2005 with no explanation;

The members of 1199SEIU hope that, as we move forward expanding healthcare access in Massachusetts, all stakeholders - the community, the hospitals, and the healthcare workers themselves - can work together to ensure a system that really will achieve the vision of quality healthcare for all.