Vermont hospital regulators set budget goals
Rutland Herald
State health care regulators are asking Vermont’s hospitals to limit their growth and what they charge in the coming fiscal year.
According to the Green Mountain Care Board, hospitals should keep their “net patient revenue growth” under 3.5% and their price increase to commercial insurers to 3.4% when they submit their budgets this summer.
Owen Foster, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, said that last year the board sought only to limit how much revenue hospitals could generate while this year it’s asking them to limit that plus how much they charge insurance carriers. “In terms of the overall amounts, these are both lower than last year’s, so the total revenue number is technically lower,” he said.
Hospitals can ask for higher increases, said Foster, and in recent years they often have. When they do, they have to go through more steps to justify their budgets.