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Budget Worries LSU Hospitals *** Health-Care System Chief Don Smithburg Fears $180 Million Shortfall

Posted on: Sunday, 12 March 2006, 18:00 CST

By MARSHA SHULER

Budget worries LSU hospitals *** Health-care system chief Don Smithburg fears $180 million shortfall

The Blanco administration's budget leaves LSU's public hospital system $180 million short of projected needs, the system's top executive said.

The governor's budget accounts for far fewer patients in New Orleans than the LSU Health Care Services Division forecasts as hospital-based services are restored after Hurricane Katrina, said Health Care Services Division chief Don Smithburg.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco's budget experts are using the same patient projections but coming up with a different bottom line.

Smithburg acknowledges that making predictions is difficult in the wake of the unprecedented storm.

"New Orleans is the wild card on that. They are forecasting. We are forecasting and nobody has a crystal ball," said Smithburg.

The expected shortfall could spill onto other charity hospitals, including LSU Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge, which is bursting at the seams treating hurricane evacuees now living here, Smithburg said.

"We are going to have to put together cut proposals for each of the hospitals," said Smithburg. "But how can you cut when we have all these new patients?"

The administration's proposed $20.3 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 earmarks $680 million for the hospitals under LSU's Health Care Services Division. The agency oversees all state public hospitals except those in Shreveport and Monroe.

The hospital system began the current budget year with a $900 million budget. The hospitals took a $200 million budget cut in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which shut down LSU's New Orleans hospitals, Smithburg said.

The proposed $680 million represents a 3 percent cut from that post-Katrina level, he said.

Blanco administration health-care funding expert Bill Black said the LSU hospitals' budget is based on projections from LSU and takes into consideration how many beds LSU will operate in New Orleans during the new fiscal year.

In the coming months, LSU will open a trauma center with some in- patient beds and a medical-surgical hospital in leased space at two locations in the New Orleans area.

By December LSU plans to have 200 beds open in a part of its University Hospital, which was badly damaged by the storm and is undergoing renovations. When those beds open, the leased facilities will be vacated.

"It's conceivable that they could need the extra money. But for them to do so they would have to put two people in every bed or in some beds," said Black, director of research and governmental accountability for the state Division of Administration.

Black said the Blanco administration's numbers take into account people returning to New Orleans and patient counts at other LSU hospitals going down as that happens.

In-patient and out-patient numbers are up at LSU hospitals in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport. Those hospitals have remained at or exceeded capacity in the aftermath of Katrina, which hit southeast Louisiana Aug. 29.

"If those numbers stay higher and the New Orleans numbers go up, the budget numbers could indeed be understated," he said.

If patient volumes remain high at Earl K. Long Medical Center, there's no way to cut the facility's budget, medical director Dr. Chapman Lee said.

Lee said the hospital is seeing double the patients it saw before Katrina and 35 percent to 40 percent more outpatients.

Lee said the LSU hospitals also train the state's doctors, making adequate funding even more important.

Smithburg said LSU will be trying to persuade the administration and lawmakers to pump more dollars into the hospital system's budget.

If that doesn't happen, Smithburg said, he will have to seek additional funding during the upcoming budget year that begins July 1.

"And we will be able to make a compelling case," he said.

Source: Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.

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