New York Hospitals April 2009

CEO foresees hospital issues

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“How can you allow the insurance companies to make this kind of money to thedetriment of the hospitals and patient care in New York State?” says AllanAtzrott, St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital CEO.Times Herald-Record/CHET GORDON

By Christian Livermore

Times Herald-Record

Posted: May 04, 2008 - 2:00 AMNEWBURGH — St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital President and CEO Allan E. Atzrott sees problems ahead forNew York hospitals — St. Luke's in particular.Inadequate Medicare reimbursements and about $21 million in charity care annually translated into a $2.7million operations loss for St. Luke's in 2007, Atzrott said at the seventh annual President's BreakfastFriday morning.Piling on are malpractice insurance rates, which can be 30 percent higher than in surrounding counties,discouraging doctors to practice here, even while the hospital's Medicare reimbursement rates are lowerthan any hospital in Orange or Dutchess County because of a geographic-based quirk in the Medicarereimbursement system.All while health insurance companies in New York State posted excess reserves of $5 billion."How can you allow the insurance companies to make this kind of money to the detriment of the hospitalsand patient care in New York State?" Atzrott said. "Something's got to be done."He proposed the state insurance superintendent should have the power to regulate commercial healthinsurance, as in some other states.Citing underfunding, the hospital announced recently the layoff of 26 employees.Union officials have suggested that Atzrott was using the union's switch to the national benefit fund — about$1 million more expensive for the hospital, Atzrott said — as a leverage tool to justify the layoffs and get abetter deal in the next union contract."It's not a leverage tool," Atzrott said after the breakfast."If some of our employees want that, they can have it, but there's a cost to it. We're the ones who issuepaychecks, not the union."clivermore@th-record.com

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CEO foresees hospital issues - recordonline.com - The Times Herald Recordhttp://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080504/BIZ...2 of 53/18/2009 2:06 PM

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