Officials at Grady Memorial and dozens of other Georgia hospitals breathed a sigh of relief when the GOP plan to scale back Medicaid recently failed in the U.S. Senate. But now, they say, they face a different threat.
If Congress doesn't act by early October, dozens of so-called safety-net hospitals such as Grady will lose tens of millions of dollars in federal reimbursements for care they provide to Medicaid patients and charity care for the uninsured.
Grady alone could lose more than $10 million next year. By 2025, hospitals across Georgia would be out perhaps $200 million annually. The hospitals affected are by their nature the least well-off in the state; executives say they would at the very least face difficult cuts, and some, the possibility of closure.
Gliann Travick, a newly diagnosed diabetes patient at Grady, told a reporter that she wasn’t surprised to hear of yet another health care funding threat looming over her hospital and others across the nation.
“They could work together and solve these things,” Travick said of members of Congress, shaking her head.
But whether lawmakers ultimately do so is an open question.
Read the whole story on myAJC: Grady, Georgia hospitals stand to lose millions in federal payments
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