Commonwealth report offers suggestions for sustaining, improving safety net hospitals

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System outlines strategies for increasing the financial sustainability of safety net hospitals and for improving the quality of care they provide (Source: “Can safety net hospitals be saved? New report offers some suggestions,” MedCity News, March 8, 2012).

According to the report, “Safety-net hospitals play an indispensable role in providing care to vulnerable populations. Yet, in the current economic environment, many safety-net hospitals face dire financial circumstances and struggle to provide care to growing numbers of low-income, uninsured, and Medicaid patients.”

Among the strategies outlined in the report are:

• Increasing Medicaid payment rates based performance
• Better targeting Medicare and Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to hospitals that serve uninsured patients
• Increasing support for safety-net hospitals’ access to capital