Governor Sundquist Advocates Balancing Hospitals’ TennCare Load as Program Prepares to Offer New Coverage for Children with Disabilities
Addressing complaints from public and teaching hospitals that private hospitals "cherry pick" patients with insurance while "undeserving" those enrolled in TennCare, the state's Medicaid managed care plan, Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist (R) said that approvals of hospital expansions should be "contingent upon service for TennCare enrollees." The Chattanooga Times & Free Press reports that state officials hope to "ensure" private facilities "carry their fair share" of poor and disabled patients. State Sen. David Fowler (R) has proposed legislation that would require hospitals to provide documentation to the state proving that they deliver "enough charity care" to justify their tax exempt status. Dennis Pettigrew, CEO of Erlanger Hospital, which serves TennCare patients, said, "We support anything that levels the playing field. There needs to be a way for teaching hospitals to balance their high costs and for other facilities to at least step up and say there is a difference and we need to compensate for it." Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association, said that each of the state's 138 hospitals accepts "at least one" TennCare MCO. Becker said, "[Hospitals] are not the problem. The physicians walking away from the program are the biggest problem right now. Hospitals have been in TennCare for seven years and they're not getting out of it" (Commins, Chattanooga Times & Free Press, 3/21).
Expanding Disability Services
In other TennCare news, beginning in July, TennCare will offer "non-risk" managed care to children with disabilities. Called TennCare Select, the program will eventually serve more than 50,000 children and help with costs that insurance companies may not cover, such as speech and occupational therapy (Wilfong, Chattanooga Times & Free Press, 2/22).
