Copyright 1999 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
THE ARIZONA
REPUBLIC
September 29, 1999 Wednesday, Final Chaser
SECTION: VALLEY AND STATE; Pg. B1
LENGTH: 606 words
HEADLINE:
KIDS HOSPITAL TOLD TO GET OWN FACILITY;
SHARING SITE WITH SAMARITAN IMPERILS
FEDERAL FUNDS, U.S. SAYS
BYLINE: By Jodie Snyder, The
Arizona Republic
BODY:
Phoenix Children's Hospital,
which treats the Valley's sickest children, is facing its own critical issue:
Federal officials say it must build its own facility or risk losing federal
funds.
For 16 years, the Valley's only children's hospital has sought to
build its own facility while operating out of two floors of Good Samaritan
Regional Medical Center Now, the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration,
overseer of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, has said it's time to act.
The hospital will soon receive HCFA's timetable, which calls for the new
facility to be finished by mid-2001, said Burl Stamp, Phoenix Children's chief
executive officer.
Meanwhile, Phoenix Children's is negotiating to buy
Phoenix Regional Medical Center, a 290-bed hospital at 20th Street and Thomas
Road.
The issue in question is how Phoenix Children's is being
reimbursed by the federal government.
Since 1983, Phoenix Children's has
rented space and services from Good Samaritan because it couldn't afford to
build its own hospital. It also has sent in its financial records to the federal
government with Samaritan's financial records.
Phoenix Children's
officials said they've done this, with federal approval, because it was the only
way it could get reimbursed for treating indigent children through Medicaid
programs.
Such cost reports are used by the government to determine
whether it paid hospitals the right amount to treat Medicare patients. In recent
years, the reports have also played an increasingly larger role in fraud
investigations. Federal officials, for example, last year zeroed in on
Columbia/HCA executives for falsifying Medicare cost reports.
Stamp said
no one has raised the issue of fraud, nor has anyone asked Phoenix Children's to
pay back any money.
Nor has anyone asked Samaritan about fraud or
paybacks, Samaritan spokesman Dan Green said Tuesday.
The cost reports
also help determine how much money a hospital will get from the federal
government for treating the poor.
Because it combined Phoenix Children's
finances with its own, Samaritan got $2.7 million more in Medicare
disproportionate funds than it would have filing separately, Green said.
However, he added, Samaritan had to cut $1 million from its
graduate-medical education allocation because of the
combination.
Phoenix Children's, which gets the majority of Medicaid
disproportionate funds, did not get any of the Medicare money.
"PCH is
fully aware of the disproportionate share that Samaritan gets," Green said.
"They have never laid claim with respect to the disproportionate share issue.
"We think it is appropriate, given the provision of the full array of
ancillary services, that we receive the money."
Stamp said HCFA approved
Phoenix Children's arrangement with Samaritan. In fact, the arrangement
continued for 15 years until state inspectors investigating an unrelated matter
to Phoenix Children's raised questions about the hospital's Medicare status.
HCFA told Samaritan officials that changes had to be made.
"If
HCFA approved this arrangement, it was in error," said Wayne Moon of HCFA in an
August 1998 letter to Samaritan.
HCFA representatives declined to
discuss Phoenix Children's because of the agency's ongoing talks with the
hospital, which started more than a year ago. At least twice during the
discussions, HCFA threatened to cut off the hospital's federal funding,
according to HCFA letters to Phoenix Children's.
But Stamp said that if
Phoenix Children's stays on the federal schedule, it can continue its current,
and unusual, practice of filing cost reports until it moves into new facility.
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 1999
