Another health care deadline looms: Payments to safety net hospitals due to expire
Unless Congress acts, Disproportionate Share Hospitals payments are slated to expire on October 1 — which would affect safety net hospitals most.
ATLANTA — Drive around this city long enough, and you’ll see the billboards that have become a staple of the skyline. They read: Atlanta can’t live without Grady.
For many here, that’s indeed the case. Grady Memorial Hospital, a safety net hospital with more than 950 beds, is where people go if they come down with the flu or if they suffer a gunshot wound, but can’t afford care anywhere else. In a state home to the third-highest percentage of uninsured residents, Georgia’s largest hospital last year spent $246 million treating patients who couldn’t afford their medical bills. The hospital was paid back for about third of those costs thanks to an overlooked-but-important federal program — but one that
