Here are five things to know:
1. Sunrise Hospital CEO Todd Sklamberg told the publication the hospital incurred $77 million in uncompensated costs caring for intensive care infants last year. The hospital has the most pediatric acute care beds in Nevada.
2. Roughly 70 percent of infants in Sunrise’s NICU are covered by Medicaid. While NICU care can cost the hospital thousands of dollars each day, Medicaid only pays up to $1,487 daily for each infant, according to the report.
3. Nevada’s Medicaid program uses a flat dollar amount to pay high-level NICU visits regardless of the level of care provided. Most states’ Medicaid programs reimburse using diagnosis-related group codes that consider acuity.
4. Sunrise does receive Disproportionate Share Hospital payments, but the supplemental reimbursement falls short, according to the report. For 2018, nearby University Medical Center in Las Vegas received 98 percent of the $70.7 million that Clark County, Nev., hospitals got through the DSH program, while Sunrise received $216,000.
5. In November, Sunrise launched a public campaign to highlight how current reimbursement rates are threatening its ability to maintain NICU services.
“There has to be a fair level of reimbursement,” Mr. Sklamberg told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Right now, it is unsustainable. Given the disproportionate level of acuity here, the need for us is immediate.”
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