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LAS CRUCES - Some $10.5 million in Doña Ana County sales tax dollars will go to two Las Cruces hospitals for unpaid patient care they'll provide this year, according to a Tuesday decision.
The subsidy will leverage federal funds for the same purpose.
The dollars are meant to compensate MountainView Regional Medical Center and Memorial Medical Center for uncompensated care, as part of the federal Sole Community Provider Program. It's aimed at keeping hospitals afloat in low-income communities.
Do-a Ana County commissioners OK'd the spending in a Tuesday meeting.
The hospitals, according to a state-calculated formula, were actually eligible for more money from the county, said Silvia Sierra, county health and human services director. But the county doesn't have that much available this year, she said.
The source of the county's match is sales tax dollars.
Executives for both hospitals addressed commissioners, saying the funding is important to their operations.
Paul Herzog, CEO of Memorial Medical Center, said MountainView and MMC are seeing a decline in Medicaid funding, because of cuts at the state level.
"This program is vitally important to both hospitals in this community," he said of Sole Community Provider funding.
Commissioners debated how to split its pool of available
Options included basing it on financial reports from each hospital about how much unpaid care they provided in the past year or the number of claims each hospital processed through a software program called "i-reach," meant to qualify residents as indigent according to the county's definition of the term.
Several health-care providers, including La Clinica de Familia and the hospitals, have access to the computer system once a patient has been registered into it.
MountainView Regional Medical Center hasn't been using the i-reach system much, said hospital CEO Denten Park.
"Unfortunately for us, it's a little bit easier for us to qualify people under some of our own programs than under the i-reach system," he said. "And so, we've not been as diligent in using the i-reach system as we will in the future, not understanding that's where the data collection point was."
But MountainView chief financial officer Gene Alexander said there are patients at the hospital who choose not to try to qualify as indigent through the county's process.
He said unpaid care given to Do-a Ana County residents by the hospital is "substantially higher than those claims reported through the i-reach system."
The county commission voted to split the dollars based on the percentage each hospital would receive, if the maximum amount of funding could be provided. That's a 96 percent-4 percent ratio, with MMC receiving more.
Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the move. The meeting took place at the county government center, 845 N. Motel Blvd., Las Cruces.
Diana M. Alba can be reached at (575) 541-5443.
