Financial Loss for Inpatient Care of Medicaid-Insured Children.
Medicaid payments tend to be less than the cost of care. Federal Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments help hospitals recover such uncompensated costs of Medicaid-insured and uninsured patients. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act reduces DSH payments in anticipation of fewer uninsured patients and therefore decreased uncompensated care. However, unlike adults, few hospitalized children are uninsured, while many have Medicaid coverage. Therefore, DSH payment reductions may expose extensive Medicaid financial losses for hospitals serving large absolute numbers of children.



To identify types of hospitals with the highest Medicaid losses from pediatric inpatient care and to estimate the proportion of losses recovered through DSH payments.



This retrospective cross-sectional analysis evaluated Medicaid-insured hospital discharges of patients 20 years and younger from 23 states in the 2009 Kids' Inpatient Database. The dates of the analysis were March to September 2015. Hospitals were categorized as freestanding children's hospitals (FSCHs), children's hospitals within general hospitals, non-children's hospital teaching hospitals, and non-children's hospital nonteaching hospitals. Financial records of FSCHs in the data set were used to estimate the proportion of Medicaid losses recovered through DSH payments.



Hospital financial losses from inpatient care of Medicaid-insured children (defined as the reimbursement minus the cost of care) were compared across hospital types. For our subsample of FSCHs, Medicaid-insured inpatient financial losses were calculated with and without each hospital's DSH payment.



The 2009 Kids' Inpatient Database study population included 1485 hospitals and 843 725 Medicaid-insured discharges. Freestanding children's hospitals had a higher median number of Medicaid-insured discharges (4082; interquartile range [IQR], 3524-5213) vs non-children's hospital teaching hospitals (674; IQR, 258-1414) and non-children's hospital nonteaching hospitals (161; IQR, 41-420). Freestanding children's hospitals had the largest median Medicaid losses from pediatric inpatient care (-$9 722 367; IQR, -$16 248 369 to -$2 137 902). Smaller losses were experienced by non-children's hospital teaching hospitals (-$204 100; IQR, -$1 014 100 to $14 700]) and non-children's hospital nonteaching hospitals (-$28 310; IQR, -$152 370 to $9040]). Disproportionate Share Hospital payments to FSCHs reduced their Medicaid losses by almost half.



Estimated financial losses from pediatric inpatients covered by Medicaid were much larger for FSCHs than for other hospital types. For children's hospitals, small anticipated increases in insured children are unlikely to offset the reductions in DSH payments.
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Jeffrey D
JD
Colvin
Children's Hospital Association, Overland Park, Kansas.
Matt
M
Hall
Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts4Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Jay G
JG
Berry
Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.
Laura M
LM
Gottlieb
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Jessica L
JL
Bettenhausen
Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Samir S
SS
Shah
Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
Evan S
ES
Fieldston
Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Baltimore, Maryland.
Patrick H
PH
Conway
Department of Pediatrics, University of California, Los Angeles10Department of Health Policy and Management, University of California, Los Angeles11RAND Health, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California12Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute, Mattel Children's Hospital, University of California, Los Angeles.
Paul J
PJ
Chung
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health / Q000191:economics*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004469:Economics, Hospital; D005260:Female; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid / Q000191:economics*; D017057:Medically Uninsured / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D011634:Public Health / Q000191:economics; D020444:Reimbursement, Disproportionate Share / Q000191:economics*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017664:Uncompensated Care / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult