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Governor says hospital tax could cover Medicaid expansion
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/article214337194.html
Maine’s Republican governor is publicly laying out a proposed tax hike on hospitals to pay for voter-approved Medicaid expansion.
Gov. Paul LePage’s office says Medicaid expansion will offset a tax hike by decreasing charity care and bad debt. Maine’s hospital tax rate is 2.23 percent, and Rabinowitz said Maine could go up to six percent.
Maine Hospital Association lobbyist Jeffrey Austin previously told The Associated Press that Maine hospitals pay $100 million in annual taxes and would oppose an increase.
Mainers voted last fall to expand Medicaid to 80,000 low-income adults.
LePage’s administration is fighting litigation by advocates calling on the governor to stop blocking expansion. LePage vetoed legislation funding Maine’s share of expansion with surplus and tobacco settlement funds after he argued lawmakers must fund expansion without raising taxes.
Vulnerable Rural Hospitals Face Quandaries Over Questionable Billing Schemes
https://khn.org/news/vulnerable-rural-hospitals-face-quandaries-over-questionable-billing-schemes/
Two rural Missouri hospitals recently handed over their operations to a private company that promised to turn them around with a billing practice it calls “a lab outreach program.”
But the approach that company is using is drawing attention from lawmakers and Missouri’s auditor. It is similar to a tactic underway at 20 rural hospitals in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida and California.
Read KHN’s previous coverage of this topic: “Outsiders Swoop In Vowing To Rescue Rural Hospitals Short On Hope — And Money” by California Healthline senior correspondent Barbara Feder Ostrov.
Shares of CHS continue to slide
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/shares-of-chs-continue-to-slide.html
Shares of Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems closed July 3 at $3.06, their lowest closing price ever and down 2.2 percent from the day prior.
The 119-hospital chain’s stock price traded as low as $2.82 on July 3 after closing July 2 at $3.13 per share. CHS’ shares have lost 34 percent of their value since hitting $4.64 on June 20, according to Seeking Alpha.
CHS’ share price began sinking June 29 after the company priced a new offering of approximately $1.03 billion of senior secured notes after markets closed June 28. The company intends to use the proceeds to pay off about $1.01 billion in outstanding term loans and related expenses.
Healthcare CEO gets prison time for role in $19.4M kickback scheme
The former CEO of American Senior Communities, an Indianapolis-based skilled nursing and rehabilitation provider, was sentenced June 29 to nine and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud, kickback and money laundering conspiracy, according to the Department of Justice.
Federal agents began their investigation into James Burkhart three years ago. In September 2015, agents executed search warrants of his residence and ASC office. About a year later, Mr. Burkhart and three others — Daniel Benson, the former COO of American Senior Communities; Steven Ganote, an associate; and Joshua Burkhart, Mr. Burkhart’s younger brother — were indicted by a federal grand jury. All of the defendants, including Mr. Burkhart, had pleaded guilty to federal felony charges by January 2018.
Mr. Burkhart and his co-conspirators were accused of creating shell companies that would inflate vendors’ bills and submit them to ASC as if the shell companies were the real vendors. He also caused vendors or shell companies to submit false bills to ASC for fictitious services that were never provided, and, in some cases, demanded vendors pay him kickbacks in exchange for allowing them to service ASC’s large number of facilities.
In addition, Mr. Burkhart had vendors inflate their bills to ASC, which he would pay with money from Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County, the public health department that operates several Indianapolis hospitals. The vendors would allegedly kick the overage back to Mr. Burkhart and his co-conspirators.
According to the DOJ, Mr. Burkhart and his co-conspirators funneled nearly $19.4 million to themselves through the scheme. The majority of the funds came from Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County.
Mr. Burkhart was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to three felony offenses: conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to violate the healthcare Anti-Kickback Statute and money laundering.
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