Every eligible hospital in North Carolina has opted in to Gov. Roy Cooper’s medical debt relief initiative, which promises extra payments to hospitals that agree to forgive old medical debt and beef up their charity care policies, state officials said Monday.
The program calls for hospitals to wipe out about $4 billion in medical debt for nearly 2 million low- and middle-income patients across the state, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
“This will make a tremendous difference in the lives of North Carolinians,” said Cooper, a Democrat. “Unlike most other debt, medical debt is not a choice. People don’t choose to have accidents and get cancer and suffer a heart attack.”
The program requires hospitals to forgive medical debt for current Medicaid patients dating back to 2014, and to forgive old debt that’s been deemed uncollectible for other low- and middle-income patients.
Hospitals must also provide charity care and specific discounts to low-income patients based on their incomes, take proactive steps to make sure eligible patients get those discounts and refrain from reporting medical debt to credit agencies.
“This is a major deal. Not only was it approved, but I’m so glad it has a 10-year back date,” said Deborah Maxwell, president of the North Carolina NAACP, who had signed a letter to hospital CEOs urging them to participate.
“Ten years ago is when we should have initially approved Medicaid expansion in this state,” she said. “This will help those individuals who were unable to access Medicaid and had to decide each time they were in pain: ‘Should I go to the hospital or wait it out because I don’t have insurance?’”
The program is leveraging new federal dollars coming to North Carolina because the state shifted to Medicaid managed care under a program called the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program. The initiative was originally expected to add about $3.2 billion annually to hospital coffers, but it will now grow to $4 billion this year and $6.5 billion in fiscal year 2025.
“We’ve taken a major step to try to make sure that [hospitals] have to perform in order to get this additional money,” Cooper said. “That’s what this program is all about. This is money that would have gone to them anyway, without conditions, to help them deal with issues that they faced during the pandemic and other expenses.”
Source: NC HEALTH NEWS
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