Commission Report Recommends Closing Many New York Hospitals

by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

With hospitals in terrible financial shape, and with the increase in uninsured-patient debt, a long-awaited plan to shrink New York state?s hospital industry has the potential to close up to 20 hospitals and thousands of jobs.

It?s a pretty unpopular plan.

As the New York Times is reporting, the recommendations by the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century go far beyond the nine hospital closings and downsizings that state officials reported late Monday, after being briefed by the commission. Several other hospitals would cease to exist through mergers or conversion to new uses, and more could be eliminated if they refuse to merge.

Unless they are rejected by Gov. George E. Pataki or by the Legislature next month, the commission?s recommendations will have the force of law, and most must be carried out by the end of 2008.

?We will do everything possible to defend our ministry,? said Joseph McDonald, chief executive of the Catholic Health System in Erie County. One of his hospitals, St. Joseph Hospital in Cheektowaga, near Buffalo, is among those marked for closing.

The nine hospital closings, with five of them in New York City, have received the most attention, but other elements in the plan could have greater effects. Stephen Berger, the commission chairman, said at a news conference that far more significant were the commission?s proposals to reshape dozens of other hospitals through mergers, downsizing, the elimination of some services and the addition of others.

The commission estimated that its plan would increase revenue at the surviving institutions by $720 million a year, as they take on patients from the places that have closed or changed missions. It also predicted that increased efficiency ? in particular, in the form of shorter hospital stays ? would save insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, $800 million a year.