Board to Consider Hiking County Hospital Charges

The Board of Supervisors this week scheduled an April 7 public hearing to consider whether to approve proposed rate hikes for services at Riverside County Regional Medical Center.

“We need to review the rates we charge because of the rates we pay,” county CEO Jay Orr told the board. “We buy drugs, medical supplies and contract out to a vast number of doctors, so we need to keep up with the costs of doing business at the hospital.”

RCRMC administrators are proposing an overall 8 percent increase in charges for care and accommodations at the Moreno Valley hospital.

According to administrators, rates were last adjusted in July 2012, and since then, inflation has pushed medical care prices up roughly 6.4 percent. Yet while other facilities have hiked rates on rooms, treatments and pills, RCRMC has kept a lid on pricing, officials said.

Huron Consulting Inc., the Chicago-based firm hired to conduct a top-to- bottom review of RCRMC’s operations in order to identify savings and revenue growth opportunities, found that area hospitals, including Loma Linda University Medical Center and Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, had raised rates an average of 10.35 percent annually over the last two years.

By increasing rates roughly 8 percent now, RCRMC would realize an additional $2.8 million in revenue over the next year, Huron estimated.

The hospital is struggling to overcome a multi-year deficit that’s expected to be $30 million by the end of the current fiscal year.

— Image via TTG Engineering Firm