Louisiana Health Department Secretary Discusses Possible Cost-Saving Measures

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 22 Apr 2008 - 10:00 PST

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Cutting the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals' operating budget by 5% next year could lead to reduced access to care for low-income and elderly residents and those with disabilities, DHH Secretary Alan Levine wrote in a letter to state House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services Chair Tom McVea (R), the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Lawmakers say they are trying to develop measures that would reduce the state's operating expenses by about $250 million.

According to Levine, most of the agency's $8.5 billion budget is allocated to the Medicaid program, 30% of which is financed by the state with the remaining funds coming from the federal government. Levine wrote that reducing spending by $86 million could lead to a reduction of $302 million after accounting for lost federal matching funds (Moller, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 4/18).

Levine offered lawmakers several options to reduce spending, including:

• Eliminating a program that provides community-based services for the developmentally disabled to save $41 million;
  
  
• Lowering the Medicaid payment rate for nursing homes to save $8 million;
  
  
• Reducing by one day the length of time a Medicaid beneficiary is allowed to stay in a charity hospital to save $27.5 million; and
  
  
• Eliminating an adult health care day program in New Orleans and the hospital unit and group home at Villa Feliciana medical complex to save $1.1 million.
  

Levine, who suggested several other possibilities, wrote, "Without knowing the Legislature's priorities as a starting point, these options are not recommendations, but rather examples of various programs the Legislature could choose to address and the potential impact of such reductions," he wrote (Millhollon, Baton Rouge Advocate, 4/18).

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