A look at the financial ramifications hospitals may see from ‘public charge’ changes

• Annual Medicaid hospital payments totaling $17 billion could be at risk as a result of a new rule concerning legal immigrants.
• Hospitals in California, New York, Texas, Florida and New Jersey potentially are most vulnerable.
• One health system plans to educate front-line and clinical staff about how patients will be impacted by the rule.

Hospitals may see Medicaid revenues decline and bad debt increase as the result of a recently finalized rule limiting legal immigrants’ access to public healthcare coverage.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a final rule modifying the definition of services that if used by immigrants would cause them to be deemed a “public...