Low Medicare Payments Put San Antonio Community Hospital in the Red
Faced with reduced Medicare reimbursements, Upland-based San Antonio Community Hospital last year experienced its first operating loss in "modern history," the Los Angeles Times reports. Officials expect to have the 330-bed facility's total operating loss calculated by April. The facility has canceled all 13 of its Medicare managed care plan contracts and is renegotiating "better terms," according to John Thompson, San Antonio's senior vice president in charge of finance. He said, "We lost money on every capitated contract we had in 2000." Hospital officials say that the new contracts, coupled with some cost-cutting measures -- including a delay in the planned expansion of its emergency room -- should have the facility operating "in the black" this year. Hospital officials do not expect to lay off any of the facility's 2,000 workers (Blish, Los Angeles Times, 1/29).
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