Hospital-based clinics are outpatient clinics that are part of a hospital, but physically separate. They provide a variety of primary care and specialty services,including cancer care, pediatric neurology and fetal medicine, all tied to a hospital’s coordinated care platform.
These clinics are physically separate from the hospital for multiple reasons: to reduce travel time for patients, because of zoning issues at the main hospital facility or because an already-established medical practice was going to close or stop accepting Medicaid patients unless the hospital took it over.
The governor’s budget plan, which lays out state funding of Medicaid services, proposes to cut payments to hospital-based clinics by an estimated $150 million over two years when federal matching funds are included. This cut threatens an important source of services that are not readily available to Medicaid patients elsewhere, potentially leaving these vulnerable populations without meaningful access to community-based primary and specialty care.
Read more in our issue brief here.
We are working closely with our legislators to understand the importance of keeping these services in our communities. Now is the time for you to contact your legislators and let them know that cutting payments to hospital outpatient clinics will seriously erode access to specialty care for Medicaid patients. I welcome the opportunity to talk more with you about the importance of these clinics and how to engage your lawmakers. Please contact me any time.
Chris Bandoli
WSHA Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Government Affairs
chrisb@wsha.org
(206) 216-2506