Florida’s non-profit and charity medical facilities that serve low income uninsured face a loss of almost $2 billion in annual revenue when the state’s Low-Income Pool Program (LIP) is scheduled to end June 30, 2015.
The impact on hospitals in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties will be over $9.38 million annually when LIP ends. Sacred Heart will lose $5,268,219, Baptist Hospital $531,469 and Santa Rosa Medical $3,582,202.
The LIP program is supposed to be offset by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), but the Florida Legislature has yet to agree to expand the eligibility criteria for Medicaid and accept funding allocated under ACA for covering the expanded population of low-income adults.
Another source of funding that will be reduced is the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital Program, which provides additional financial support to hospitals that serve a “disproportionate share†of the poor. Hospitals, Sacred Heart, that serve a high rate of Medicaid or uninsured patients have received this funding. In 2014, Florida will receive almost $240 million in DSH funding.
The ACA significantly reduced DSH because the Act’s provisions for Medicaid expansion would considerably reduce the number of uninsured individuals. Sacred Heart receives $494,046 in DSH funding.