Dozens of state lawmakers, as well as Vermont’s lieutenant governor-elect, are calling on UVM Health Network to reconsider recently-announced cuts to patient services.
That’s after staff and community members held protests last week.
The health network’s proposed changes include: consolidating several Mad River Valley clinics, handing off operation of rural dialysis centers, admitting fewer patients for overnight care at the University of Vermont Medical Center, and closing Central Vermont Medical Center’s inpatient psychiatry unit, which currently has eight beds.
In the case of the psychiatry unit, CVMC said it’s expanding mental health service in outpatient settings, like primary care — and is considering standing up a mental health urgent care center.
Northfield Rep. Anne Donahue, a Republican, who has done mental health advocacy for years, said those services do not replace inpatient hospital care.
“It's sort of like telling a heart attack patient in the emergency room, 'Don't worry, we're expanding our outpatient cardiology,'” she said. “That’s not the level of need that’s being shut down.”
The cuts to patient services are in response to budget orders from state regulators, which reduce the amount UVM Medical Center can charge commercial insurance by 1% from last year’s rates.
UVM Health Network leaders say they have no choice but to cut patient services to avoid operating at a loss.
“If we lose money this year by cutting our commercial rates so low that we have our revenue come down to the number they need, we won't have a margin at the end of the year,” said Dr. Stephen Leffler, UVM Medical Center’s president and COO, at a press conference Tuesday.
“We won't be able to give people their pay raises for [20]26, we won't be able to keep up with the cost of new drugs,” he added.
In deciding which patient services to cut, CVMC President and COO Anna Noonan said it’s been difficult. She said the hospital looked for which services came at a high cost, and whose loss would impact "the least amount of individuals."
Noonan said that’s what informed the decision to close the inpatient psychiatric unit at her hospital.
“The costs were prohibitive,” she said. “We understand the vulnerability of all of the populations that are being impacted by these changes. Again, very difficult decisions for us to make.”
She said patients will need to get inpatient psychiatric care at other hospitals going forward.
“I’ve been in contact with my colleagues around the state that do have inpatient psychiatric capacity,” Noonan said. “The good news is they feel like they can support us in managing that capacity by taking patients.”
State lawmakers are expressing concern that the patient services UVM Health Network is choosing to cut will impact some of the most vulnerable Vermonters.
“These cuts would be catastrophic for our communities and for our constituents, and would be irreversible," said Washington County Sen. Andrew Perchlik, a Democrat/Progressive.
And it all happened so quickly, he added.
“We think it [would] just be irresponsible not to take a step back and see if there are other ways of meeting the board's order,” Perchlik said.
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