Lawmakers are pushing several bills that aim to free up beds at Maui Memorial Medical Center by moving costly long-term care patients into other health care facilities.
One such measure, House Bill 995, would authorize as much as
$4 million in general funds over two years for Hale Makua Health Services, run by former Maui Memorial CEO Wesley Lo, to take so-called waitlist patients who no longer need hospital care but need long-term care. Two other measures — Senate Bill 277 and its companion, House Bill 709 — are requesting state subsidies for the same purpose.
Roughly 20 percent of beds at Maui Memorial, the only acute-care hospital on the island, are taken by waitlist patients, many of them uninsured, who are waiting to transfer to a long-term care facility.
“There is a big problem on Maui with the waitlist,” Lo said following a Senate hearing Wednesday, adding that nearly 50 of
200 beds were taken by waitlist patients that day. “They’re canceling surgeries and holding people in the ER … so it’s affecting care.”
The state currently provides Maui Memorial with about $30 million in annual subsidies, which lawmakers hope to reduce by decreasing the number of waitlist patients.
“From a financial perspective, without adequate capacity to provide more profitable services, Maui Memorial Medical Center will continue to need subsidies to support waitlist patients at the higher cost of acute hospital care versus the lower cost of nursing home care,” lawmakers said in HB 995.
The cost of taking care of a patient in the hospital is about
$1,500 a day, Lo said.
“These same patients, if they were taken care of in nursing facilities, would cost about $300 to
$500 per day,” he said, adding that the state would save nearly
$11 million by getting at least
20 waitlist patients out. “I have about 60 empty beds. If we don’t move them, it’s going to cost the hospital millions and millions of dollars. We want to get people to the appropriate level of care.”
The state subsidies would help the 350-bed Hale Makua care for uninsured waitlist patients now at Maui Memorial and invest in specialty equipment and medicines needed for higher-acuity patients, Lo said.
“If they’re homeless we’ll take them, but someone has got to pay,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to make money on this. We are 75 percent of all long-term care beds on Maui. If we don’t survive, then the whole system collapses. There will be no long-term care beds.”
Kaiser Permanente Hawaii is set to become the new operator of Maui Memorial and two other facilities on July 1 in a deal Gov. David Ige estimates will save the state $260 million over 10 years.
“The assumption is that come July 1, Kaiser’s affiliate will be managing the hospital, but the issue with having acute-care beds being filled with long-term care patients is still going to be there,” said Sen. Gilbert Keith-Agaran (D, Wailuku-Waihee-Kahului). “Maui Memorial and the state would benefit because we wouldn’t be losing as much money for having long-term patients in our acute-care beds.”
HB 995 is scheduled for a hearing today at 8:30 a.m. in House conference room 329 at the state Capitol.
