Both sides clash on charity care law in Wash. hospitals
Oct 17, 2023, 7:56 AM | Updated: 6:31 pm
The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) has filed a lawsuit over the state’s charity care law.
Washington hospitals currently provide charity care to those with financial need who have an emergency regardless of residence or immigration status.
Now, the Department of Health (DOH) wants them to provide charity care for any service.
The hospital association said this will make healthcare more expensive for everyone else.
“There is no such thing as free care. Nurses, physicians, pharmacists, housekeepers and other staff who care for charity care patients still must be paid,” WSHA CEO Cassie Sauer said. “Under the department’s interpretation, people living in Washington will subsidize charity care services to people from outside of the state.”
It’s hoping for a ruling before January when those changes go into effect.
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The state has long endorsed hospital policies that limit non-emergency charity care to residents of Washington state or geographies that correspond to the hospital’s service area.
On September 18 the DOH issued a statement changing its interpretation of the state’s charity care law. The department will now require all hospitals to provide charity care for any service to anyone in the world who seeks it. Washington hospitals disagree with the department’s interpretation.
“The new interpretation dramatically departs from more than three decades of established practice based on the state’s current charity care law and now bars hospitals from implementing charity care policies with any geographic limit,” said Taya Briley, executive vice president and general counsel for the hospital association. “Instead, it requires hospitals to provide free or discounted care to anyone from anywhere. The new approach would make WHSA state a medical tourism destination.”
Many hospitals in Washington provide patients from other areas with services they cannot get where they live. For example, hospitals provide trauma services, pediatric specialty services, and organ transplants to people from outside Washington state. The new interpretation removes the hospital’s ability to discern what the organization can absorb while still providing care to local patients.
“The opening lines of the law make it clear charity care is intended for the benefit of the people of Washington state: ‘The legislature finds that rising health care costs and access to health care services are of vital concern to the people of this state,” said Sauer. “WSHA’s goal is the same as the law’s goal: to ensure the benefits of charity care are for the people of our state and that hospital resources are available to Washingtonians who need them. If charity care is needed by a patient in the community, they should be able to access the care without competing for space with other patients from other states and around the world.”
Mid-size and larger hospitals provide free and discounted care for people with income up to 400% of the federal poverty level, which is $58,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a family of four. Smaller hospitals provide free or discounted charity care to people with incomes up to 300% of the federal poverty level or about $43,000 for an individual and $90,000 for a family of four.
WSHA is seeking an opinion from the Thurston County Superior Court before the DOH imposed January 16, 2024 deadline for hospitals to change their charity care policies.
Contributing: KIRO Newsradio
