Mayo to give preference to privately insured patients over Medicaid patients

[question everything]

Mayo Clinic’s chief executive made a startling announcement in a recent speech to employees: The Rochester-based health system will give preference to patients with private insurance over those with lower-paying Medicaid or Medicare coverage, if they seek care at the same time and have comparable conditions.

The number of patients affected would probably be small, but the selective strategy reveals the financial pressures that Mayo is facing in part due to federal health reforms. For while the Affordable Care Act has reduced the number of uninsured patients, it has increased the share covered by Medicaid, which pays around 50 to 85 cents on the dollar of the actual cost of medical care.

Mayo will always take patients, regardless of payer source, when it has medical expertise that they can’t find elsewhere, said Dr. John Noseworthy, Mayo’s CEO. But when two patients are referred with equivalent conditions, he said the health system should “prioritize” those with private insurance.

More..

http://www.startribune.com/mayo-to-pick-privately-insured-patients-amid-medicaid-pressures/416185134/

[jehop61]

1. At the Florida facility

they have been refusing Medicare patients for years. Cash only we were told

[question everything]

2. Wonder whether this is legal

whether their payments from Medicare and Medicaid can be jeopardized.

[WillowTree]

4. They don't get payments from Medicare or Medicaid because they don't accept them.

[Blue_true]

3. A leader of a health facility being called a CEO.

We need to get back to government owned and operated hospitals. For profit hospitals is a disgrace.

[question everything]

5. The question is not so much about a CEO

my non-profit insurance has a CEO. The question is whether the organization has shareholders in whose interests, not the the patients or even the care providers, decisions are being made.

[question everything]

6. Practice prohibited in Minnesota

A letter to the editora

I was stunned to read that Mayo Clinic has decided to discriminate against Medicare and Medicaid recipients in the provision of services (“Private payers get priority at Mayo,” March 15). Such discrimination is specifically prohibited by Minnesota’s Human Rights Act. Specifically, Minnesota Statute 363A.12 provides: “It is an unfair discriminatory practice to discriminate against any person in the access to, admission to, full utilization of or benefit from any public service because of … status with regard to public assistance … unless the public service can demonstrate that providing the access would impose an undue hardship on its operation.”

“Status with regard to public assistance” means the condition of being a recipient of federal, state, or local assistance, including medical assistance, or of being a tenant receiving federal, state, or local subsidies, including rental assistance or rent supplements.” (363A.03, Subd. 47.)

Class-action lawyers undoubtedly are licking their chops.

James M. Hamilton, St. Paul

http://www.startribune.com/readers-write-march-15-mayo-clinic-and-medicare-medicaid-the-equal-rights-amendment-u-s-rep-steve-king-surdyk-s-law-flouting-the-seeking-of-super-bow-volunteers/416278884/