In small towns like this (Leoti) across Kansas, hospital administrators are paying close attention to federal deficit-reduction talks in Washington, D.C. that could lead to a 2 percent cut in Medicare spending, starting Jan. 1.
“Two percent may not sound like much,” said Vicki Hahn, who runs the Wichita County Health Center in Leoti. “But we’re a ‘critical access hospital,’ which means we’re reimbursed for 101 percent of our Medicare costs. If 2 percent gets taken away, it would put us in the red on our Medicare patients. That wouldn’t be good.”
Leoti is about 40 miles from Colorado and 110 miles from Oklahoma in a county where about 18 percent of the population is age 65 or older. Total county population is 2,276 people according to most recent U.S. Census estimates.
“We’re a frontier county,” Hahn said.
Medicare patients account for about 78 percent of the patients seen by the publicly owned hospital.
A cut in Medicare reimbursement, Hahn said, would force the hospital to ask the Wichita County Commission for help in offsetting the loss of federal support.
(Read more at the Gardner News)