A bill that is being worked on in the Iowa House would provide additional funding to hospitals to help offset reimbursement denials from the Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) of the Privatization of Medicaid system.

District 47 Representative Phil Thompson says the legislation would give additional funding from the state’s general fund to 82 of Iowa’s critical access hospitals, Greene County Medical Center included.

“What we’ve done is we’ve put aside $15 million to fund their Medicaid programs and pay them out at 101-percent rates. When talking to our (medical center) CEO and other hospital administrators, this was the number one thing that we felt we could deliver on to keep these services in rural Iowa.”

Greene County Medical Center CEO Carl Behne says they would receive an average of $300,000 if the bill is passed. He points out that it’s nice when the legislature can step up and do something like this to help rural hospitals who continue to struggle getting payments from the MCOs.

“When a program like this gets introduced and it removes a consistent funding source from a rural hospital, and it makes it that much more difficult to deliver care in a rural setting, I think it starts to get the attention of our legislators. Representative Thompson has been very supportive of it. He’s very committed, obviously, to making sure healthcare locally in our rural communities. And I’m confident Senator (Jerry) Behn feels the same way too.”

Thompson adds that he wants to see individual case managers assigned to individuals to help handle the issues that MCOs have created with the privatization of Medicaid.