A group of doctors plans to sue the state Friday in an attempt to stop new limitations on repeat visits to the emergency room.
The challenge to the $72 million cut to state and federal spending that is due to take effect Saturday is the latest in a series of lawsuits that could deepen the state’s budget sinkhole. The state budget shortfall now stands at $1.3 billion.
The interest groups and advocates taking the state to court are reacting to the Legislature’s cuts to human services and public employee compensation. For example:
• A hearing is scheduled for Friday in front of a King County Superior Court judge on another cut to hospitals. The Legislature cut hospital reimbursements for Medicaid services by $260 million in state and federal money. Lawmakers said the change lined up the reimbursements with federal Medicare rates, but hospitals call it an illegal diversion of fees they agreed to pay in 2010 to help pull down more federal health care money.
• Nonprofit community health centers have also challenged their payment rates, according to the governor’s budget office.
• Two unions and a group representing retired public employees plan to sue in October to restore retirees’ cost-of-living increases. Lawmakers ended the main annual increase this year for two older pension plans, saving $400 million in the two-year budget. Expect claims to be similar to those in the union challenge of a 2007 repeal of another pension benefit, known as “gain-sharing.” A King County judge struck down that cut, but the case remains in court.
• A federal judge this year halted the Jan. 1 elimination of the state’s food stamp program for legal immigrants, saying the cut violated equal-protection guarantees in the U.S. Constitution. An appeals court panel is considering the class action lawsuit. The benefit helps about 13,000 noncitizens who are ineligible for federal food aid.
• Another challenge to cuts that would have taken effect Jan. 1 came from the home health care workers of Service Employees International Union Local 775, which challenged reductions of their hours. A judge declined to forestall the cuts, and both sides are waiting on an appeals court ruling.
• A judge is deciding whether to prevent the state from removing patients from the rolls of the state-subsidized Basic Health insurance for adults who don’t qualify for Medicaid.
The latest legal salvo comes from the state chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. The 650-member group expects to file a lawsuit this morning in Thurston County Superior Court, said Dr. Nathaniel Schlicher, associate medical director for the emergency department at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, who provided a news release the group plans to issue Friday.
The suit challenges a plan to cut off Medicaid payments after a patient’s third trip to the ER for so-called nonemergencies.
The state Health Care Authority has drawn up a list of more than 700 diagnoses that will qualify for the limits, including nonspecific chest pain, shortness of breath and kidney stones.
The authority says it will target frequent users and discourage overuse of emergency rooms. Poor patients, dealing with chronic conditions, struggling to find doctors who accept Medicaid or simply finding it easier to go to emergency rooms, make tens of thousands of visits a year for the conditions.
Hospitals and doctors stand to miss out on payments for patients they are required by law to see. They say many of the listed symptoms are indeed emergencies, even if they might turn out not to be serious after a thorough evaluation.
The Washington State Medical Association says in the news release that it supports the lawsuit.
Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826
jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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