Those health centers have each seen revenue losses of at least $500,000 because of the Medicaid relaxation, according to Amy Simmons Farber, a spokeswoman for the health center association.
By the end of December, Family Health Centers, a network of clinics in Louisville, Ky., had lost more than 2,000 Medicaid patients since the policy change took effect in April, a decrease of nearly 6 percent, said Melissa Mather, a spokeswoman for clinic. For every one percent reduction in Medicaid patient visits, he said, the clinic sees a $175,000 to $200,000 drop in revenue.
Bethesda is now engaged in a “month-to-month survival game,” said Amber Greene, Bethesda’s operations manager, who also works as a nurse. Standing in a supply closet to make her point, she gestured to a modest stash of Tylenol, Motrin and thermometers, donated by the church next door.
The clinic, with the vast majority of its patients on Medicaid, needs about $115,000 each month to operate its medical and dental clinics, but still runs a monthly deficit of about $10,000. Sometimes the cost he eats is small, such as the fee for the vaccine given to the mother that she could not pay. But they add up, forcing the clinic to get creative to preserve funds. A local pharmacy offers antibiotics at a significant discount, and the clinic reduced the cost of viral testing by performing it in-house.
Texas health officials defended the rollout as a natural reversal of the shape and size sought by Medicaid. Conservative health policy experts have also argued that shrinking the roles is important to keeping the program financially viable.
“The reality is that many health care providers cannot sustainably see Medicaid patients because the program reimburses so little and the claims process is so excruciating that many providers end up making losses to the point where they threaten to close,” he said. Tanner Aliff, Health Specialist; at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation.
