Coast Hospitals Sue State Department of Medicaid

Singing River Health System and Memorial Hospital, the Coast’s two largest healthcare systems, are feeling shortchanged millions of dollars from the State Department of Medicaid for uninsured patient care.
Now, the two hospitals are seeking relief in chancery court with a lawsuit.
Each year, about 60,000 uninsured patients seek care at Harrison County and Jackson County hospitals, making the two counties the second and third highest with uninsured patients in the state. Now the Coast’s two largest community healthcare systems claim they are underfunded to care for those patients and are now suing the State Department of Medicaid. Singing River Health System CEO Kevin Holland said, “The uninsured population in our community is not going away. It’s not diminishing and for us to be able to continue to fulfill our mission, this lawsuit is critical to us.”
Memorial and Singing River Health System, both not for profit health systems, are seeking to recover underpaid Medicaid funds in excess of $20 million for fiscal year 2016 and also ask for change to the current formula to level the playing field for healthcare providers across the state. Memorial Hospital CEO Gary Marchand said, “The lawsuit asks why, if you know what our costs are for caring for Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured, why are you underpaying Coast safety net hospitals and allowing other hospitals in the state to receive payments in excess of their costs?”
Both Memorial and Singing River believe hospitals in the Pine Belt region are getting more money than they should from Medicaid when they’re uninsured population is considerably smaller than the Coast. They say if they continue to go underfunded, the amount of services will dwindle and so will the quality of patient healthcare. “It’s going to affect our budget processes and budget cycles at some point. We can’t go on year after year after year being underpaid $10 million a year relative to our cost structure,” said Marchand.