Syracuse, NY – A government mistake could cost two schools of nursing at Syracuse hospital millions of dollars.
The St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center School of Nursing was asked to reimburse $ 10.5 million to the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS for short.
The Crouse Hospital nursing school needs to reimburse about $ 4 million.
They are two of the approximately 120 hospital-based nursing schools across the country that are being asked to reimburse CMS overpayments between 2002 and 2018. A CMS miscalculation has caused overpayments.
Hospitals say they shouldn’t have to pay for the government’s mistake, especially now during the Covid-19 pandemic, when they are struggling financially and nursing teams are running out.
Some elected officials asked CMS to give hospitals a break. But the federal agency says it is required by law to collect undue payments by June 22, 2022.
Meredith Price, St. Joe’s chief financial officer, said the hospital was talking to elected members of Congress and the Biden government to “find a solution that would not force hospitals to pay such a severe penalty for government error”.
“Taking millions of dollars out of nursing schools amid a global health crisis that hit the nursing profession most strongly is a devastating blow to our community, our college and future nursing students,” said Price.
Robert Allen, vice president of Crouse, said his hospital was surprised when he was asked to pay $ 4 million because of a CMS miscalculation.
“We had no indication or knowledge that payments were not accurate,” said Allen.
Both hospitals say they have no plans to cut enrollments at nursing schools as a result of unexpected payments. “Our focus is on maintaining and, hopefully, increasing the current enrollment volume,” said Allen.
Price said St. Joe’s will have to make up for the revenue deficit “elsewhere in our system.”
Upstate Medical University, which also has a nursing school, was not asked to refund payments, said Kathleen Froio, a spokeswoman for the interior.
CMS said in an August letter that its failure to make annual adjustments to federal payments to medical training programs inadvertently caused overpayments to nursing programs.
CMS said in a statement that it is still calculating the total amount of overpayments owed by nursing schools with 120 hospitals. STAT, a health news site affiliated with the Boston Globe, reported that overpayments to affected hospitals could reach $ 1 billion.
The CMS said that hospitals will be allowed to pay debts over time.
The affected hospitals are members of the National League for Nursing, a trade association.
“This funding was accepted in good faith and used by these hospital-based nursing schools to support the education of nursing students who are sorely needed to address the continuing nursing shortage,” the group said in a statement. “We need to increase the general capacity of nursing schools – not reduce it.”
In a recent letter to Congressional leaders, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, DN.Y., and several other senators said the CMS’s effort to recover payments is poorly timed.
“Hospital-based nursing schools act as employers and educators, and provide highly trained nurses to many of the communities most affected by Covid-19,” says the letter. “Failure to act can put these schools at risk of closing or severe cuts when we need them most.”
James T. Mulder covers health and higher education. Got a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or [email protected]