An advocacy group says declines in uncompensated care have saved West Virginia hospitals millions of dollars.
State data compiled by West Virginians for Affordable Health Care show more than two dozen hospitals saved a total of more than $265 million from 2013 to 2014.
The group’s founder and former director, Perry Bryant, told The Charleston Gazette-Mail that hospitals should use these savings to improve the health of their communities.
Bryant says Charleston Area Medical Center’s charity care and bad debt dropped by 47 percent, from $137 million to $72.6 million. West Virginia University Hospitals’ uncompensated care fell by 54 percent, from $94 million to $43 million.
Since 2013, more than 200,000 West Virginians have obtained health insurance through Medicaid or the health insurance marketplace.
Organizations in West Virginia have launched an initiative to improve health care quality throughout the state.
West Virginians for Affordable Health Care on Thursday launched the initiative called Choosing Wisely in West Virginia.
The program is patterned after a national initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation that’s geared toward ensuring that health care providers are providing the right treatments when necessary. More than 60 medical specialty societies have joined the national initiative since its creation in 2012. The initiative has identified more than 250 questionable procedures, tests and drugs.
The Charleston Gazette reports that the state initiative has garnered the support of partners like the West Virginia Nurses Association, the West Virginia State Medical Association, the West Virginia Primary Care Association and others.
The deadline to sign up for health insurance or Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and the state Medicaid expansion is Monday, March 31, but don’t fret! There is still time to start the application process if you haven’t yet begun.
Michelle Bays, a certified application counselor for Valley Health in Huntington, says there is some basic information you need in order to apply for coverage on the federal healthcare exchange.
Number of people in your household along with their dates of birth and social security numbers
Proof of income for your household, including pay stubs of W-2s
An Employer Coverage Tool- a form from your employer if they offer health insurance you are opting out of
That information will tell you whether or not you’re eligible for Medicaid or tax subsidies and give you a variety of health plans to choose from.
So far, fewer then 15,000 West Virginians have signed up for health insurance through the exchange, a number that greatly lags many other states’ totals.
Perry Bryant with West Virginians for Affordable Health Care says that number could have been better had the governor’s office chose to accept federal dollars for advertising campaigns.
“We’ve been handicapped in that effort,” he said. “There just hasn’t been the media campaign. So, we’ve been fighting this battle with one arm behind our back.”
A spokesperson for the governor’s office said Thursday when the state chose to partner with the federal government on the exchange itself, they also decided to leave the advertising up to the feds as well.
Bryant, however, was more than happy with the number of West Virginians signed up for Medicaid through the state expansion. That expansion increases eligibility from 100 percent of the federal poverty line to 133 percent.
Jeremiah Samples, assistant to the secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Resources, says 101,803 individuals have signed up for Medicaid since enrollment began in October. He expects that number, and the number of those enrolled through the federal exchange, to increase before West Virginia reaches their enrollment deadline Monday.
West Virginia ranks second only to New York as the state getting the best deal from Obamacare, according to a new report from the company Evolution Finance.
The report looks at what all 50 states received through the Affordable Care Act. It uses 11 metrics designed to gauge the law’s impact on consumers and each state’s budget.
States that chose to expand their Medicaid rolls under the law, such as West Virginia, benefited the most. Taxpayers in states that rejected Medicaid expansion are subsidizing health care in other states, the report says.
Here are some of the report’s top findings:
1. West Virginia receives a return of $5.11 for every $1 it spends on the ACA, according to the report, behind only Vermont in the rate of return.
2. West Virginia also had the highest percentage of people with pre-existing conditions who can no longer be denied insurance. More than 29 percent of West Virginians under 65 have such a pre-existing condition.
3. State residents are also saving more than $212 per person on uncompensated care because of Obamacare.
Uncompensated care is the cost hospitals have to pass on to other consumers because certain people cannot pay. West Virginia ranked third in that measure. It is expected to decline as a result of the ACA’s new minimum care requirements as well as the Medicaid expansion.
Credit Ashton Marra
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Governor Tomblin explains his decision to expand Medicaid in West Virginia during a Charleston press conference.
4. West Virginians have the most emergency room visits per capita of any state – 11 percent.
High emergency room visit rates are considered a sign of a poorly functioning health care system, as emergency patients are most commonly uninsured, low-income individuals who lack the means to pay for regular care and, therefore, only receive medical attention under dire circumstances.
Evolution Finance is a financial services company that runs personal financial websites such as Wallet Hub. It says the report “sought to cut through the rhetoric and uncertainty to provide an unbiased, non-partisan assessment of how the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act will affect each state from a purely economic standpoint, considering both the state government and individual perspectives.”
The number of uninsured West Virginians is expected to drop by 70 percent in the next three years. That’s according to numbers from the state Insurance Commissioners Office and presented by West Virginians for Affordable Health Care in the wake of open enrollment under the health care exchange.
The non-profit group is working with organizations around the state to help West Virginians navigate that new exchange and sign up for insurance.
WVAHC Executive Director Perry Bryant said so many Americans have become interested in signing up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s central facet that the federal website crashed Tuesday morning and there was a wait time of up to 15 minutes for the federal call center.
He said in order to help with the influx, some West Virginia groups have created their own websites to assist consumers looking to buy health insurance or qualifiers sign up for Medicaid in the hopes that they can impact the state’s overall health in the future.
“It is a new day. It is a new era and one in which we are going to take a significant step towards providing quality, affordable health care in West Virginia and I’m proud to be a part of that effort,” Perry said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
