PAYMENT REFORM MUST PROTECT SOCIETAL NEEDS

MHA has released the third part of its six-part series on Massachusetts payment Reform. The latest paper – "Support for Societal needs: A Critical issue to Address in payment Reform" -- examines five societal needs that hospitals and health systems fulfill and the importance of these efforts to the community and economy, and the potential impact of a global payment system on hospitals' ability to continue to meet the needs.

MHA identified the following five societal needs as illustrative of a much larger group of benefits that hospitals provide:
A safety-net for low income patients: An adequate supplemental payment mechanism for providers will be needed to address unpaid care for low-income uninsured and underinsured patients, as well as bad debt.

Essential hospital operations in each community around the clock: The provision of healthcare services must be guaranteed for every community 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year including disaster readiness and response.

Medical education capacity for physicians, nurses and allied medical professionals: Our supply of nurses and physi¬cians is aging and replacement is critical to maintain healthcare access and quality. Professional medical personnel shortages are a fact our nation and Commonwealth must face, and Massachusetts hospitals play a significant role in training those personnel.

A robust research capacity for the continued development of improved treatments for disease and injury: Massachusetts teaching hospitals form the nucleus of a vital and thriving medical research complex that has spawned many advances in medical care and both directly and indirectly supports the Commonwealth’s biotechnology industry. Care must be taken that health care payment reform does not kill this “golden goose.”

Caring for patients with significant behavioral health and chronic rehabilitative needs: Special attention needs to be given to patients who receive services in a specialized unit of a general hospital or in a specialty hospital.

"Any payment reform effort should be sure to include adequate and appropriate support for the commonwealth's hospitals and health systems to continue to provide these important contributions to the public good," MHA writes. The paper also contains appendices that delve in depth into hospital financial issues relating to the Safety Net, Bad Debt and more, as well as a thorough discussion of Graduate Medical Education.

The paper is the third in a series of five that MHA has prepared to help lay the foundation for payment reform and is available at MHA's website – www.mhalink.org and is attached below.