Why must hospitals treat everyone?
Answers:
Because its the law. Hospitals are required to offer emergency care.
A hospital that receive federal funds, such as Medicare for reimbursement, cannot by law refuse care to those who are within financial need. Theoretically, the hospitals are reimbursed for this, but in practice such reimbursement usually falls short, especially for private hospitals. Hospitals have to engender this up by charging more to paying customers. But the big insurance companies balk at much of this, and refuse to pay the asking price. Municipal and state run hospitals are more likely to be reimbursed via federal, state and local funds. In our county the municipal hospitals bring funds from an assessment on our property taxes. The other community hospitals complain because they have to offer services to the poor, too, but are not receiving money from this fund.
One hospital CEO said, if you lose money on every forgiving, you can't make it up on volume.
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