Consultant says 4 hospitals need 'major restructuring,' recommends consolidating health care services across Vermont
VTDigger
A consultant is urging the state to make dramatic changes to its health care system, including repurposing inpatient units at four hospitals, consolidating services at others and reforming how and how much facilities are paid for care.
If fully enacted, the recommendations, contained in a 144-page report published Wednesday, would lead to a sweeping transformation of Vermont’s health care landscape. The report envisions a system in which much care takes place outside hospitals, existing full-service hospitals pivot to providing specific types of care and charges to private insurance are kept down through regulation.
Without the proposed transformations, Vermont would be forced to subsidize struggling hospitals into the future — with an additional $700 million to $2.4 billion needed over the next five years just to break even, according to the consultant’s projections.
“The platform of health care in Vermont has burned,” Bruce Hamory, a physician and partner with consultancy Oliver Wyman, told the Green Mountain Care Board in a presentation Wednesday, “and requires rebuilding in a modern form, with more sustainable governance and funding methods.”