Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Improves Finances, Receives Full Funding from State for Indigent Care

The Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, which finished the fiscal year ending June 30 with a "small profit," is "showing a better bottom line" and will request "only slight" increases in funding for indigent care programs for the next budget cycle, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. Dominic Puleo, VCU executive vice president for corporate finance, said, "We are looking at level funding. What we are looking at is not to get any new dollars except for what we call medical inflation related to supplies, salaries, et cetera. That is anticipated to be 4.7%." VCU Health System runs Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, which provide nearly one-third of the indigent care in the state. The Times-Dispatch reports that until this year, the health system had "spent more on caring for poor and uninsured people than it was being reimbursed by the state through Medicaid" and other state programs. State officials have funded $102.5 million in indigent-care costs for the system in the fiscal year that will end June 30, 2002. In return, the state asked the health system to "trim its costs." The health system plans to "cut" some staff and services, and Puleo said the health system is "really aggressively controlling [its] costs." In addition, the health system has announced plans to "broaden its reach" throughout the state by increasing enrollment in Virginia Premier, a Medicaid managed care plan in central Virginia, by as much as 60,000 people. The plan has 28,000 beneficiaries (Smith, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 9/11).