Frank Cioffi: High-quality health care requires thoughtful financial support now

This comment is from Frank Cioffi of South Burlington, president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, a regional economic development organization.

Sometimes, I think we take our health for granted. Until something goes wrong, we don’t tend to think about the incredible facilities and providers available to us.

Without a doubt, the pandemic has touched and awakened each of us in a life-changing way. Over the past few years, members of my family and close friends have had significant medical conditions that have resulted in them seeking treatment and care at the University of Vermont Medical Center. In each of their situations, the medical care they received and the quality of service and treatment was long-lasting, consistent and compassionate.

In such a small state, we are extremely fortunate to have UVM Medical Center, the only Tier 1 academic medical center in Vermont and upstate New York, serving a population of 1 million people and taking care of all the needs of health care in this almost exclusively rural region.

It is critical that we understand that maintaining our economically vital medical center is critically important to Vermont’s economic stability and to the health and well-being of Vermonters.

Recently, Governor Scott wisely and accurately summarized a major concern about the fragility of our health care system:

“Stabilizing our health care system has become increasingly urgent. Our health care system’s ability to provide access to affordable, timely, and quality care is very fragile as it emerges from the pandemic and faces the impacts of delayed care, an aging population, a workforce crisis, and historically high inflation. high which increases the costs of supplies. , energy and staff. With all these factors, the system is at risk of significant disruption and instability.”

In the current environment, operating an institution and health care system like UVM Medical Center is incredibly challenging, and our state and federal governments must step up to provide more support and financial assistance to ensure that financial stability is fundamental to providing access. in quality. careful. A hospital should not be forced to use its reserves to subsidize operating costs and jeopardize its ability to make strategic and necessary investments in facilities, equipment and build capacity, and to support the retention and withdrawal of very talented nurses, doctors, doctors and physicians.

Recent actions by UVM Medical Center have shown that it is working to address the workforce and cost inflation that threatens its sustainability. In the recent agreement with the union representing its nurses, UVMMC pledged to invest $70 million in additional wages and other financial benefits to attract and retain full-time employees. This move clearly demonstrates the medical center’s foresight and commitment to responsibly retain and attract the best providers and proactively address workforce and cost inflation challenges by moving away from reliance on travelers and temporary workers .

Under our current health care system, creating a budget is a mathematical equation, and the only place to go for revenue growth is to commercial insurers. The state of Vermont did not increase Medicaid hospital reimbursements for the current fiscal year, and Medicare is proposing low or negative rate increases.

It is essential that government payers cover their share of the costs, knowing that the more we reimburse from Medicaid, the more federal dollars we draw to support Vermont’s delivery system.

In this region, we cannot separate the financial and policy discussion about health care costs from the high-quality services we all expect to receive for ourselves, our loved ones, our employees and our community.

If we are to meet the needs of the people of this region, we must have a financially sound delivery system and excellent people providing care. Investing in our hospitals is an investment in our health.