MLK Community Hospital leaders are sounding the alarm that the Los Angeles-based safety-net hospital may run out of money to pay bills as early as next year.
The hospital lost more than $42 million in the budget year that ended in June, Becker’s reports. Hospital leaders said the funding system that includes supplemental payments for the state and county government has failed to keep pace with inflation and increasing labor expenses. The end of federal aid from the COVID-19 pandemic added to financial woes.
The hospital has also been challenged by the fact that its emergency department has seen four times as many patients as initially expected when it opened, and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, does not fully cover the costs for providing emergency services. The increasing number of patients added to expenses because mandated nurse-to-patient ratios required the hospital to hire hundreds more nurses. MLK was more than $20 million over budget for temporary labor last year, with the majority of that due to travel nurses. Read more.
