If Congress and President Joe Biden fail to reach an agreement on further mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic, safety net hospitals, federally eligible health centers and labs may have to cut staff and hours and limit patient access.

COVID-19 uninsured plans are Budget impasse Between lawmakers and the White House, $22.5 billion was initially requested for an ongoing COVID-19 response. Laws enacted by Presidents Biden and Donald Trump authorized the program to begin in 2020 to ensure providers are paid for COVID-19 care for uninsured U.S. residents, an estimated 28 million U.S. residents.

The federal government has paid providers more than $17 billion to test, treat and vaccinate the uninsured. The Health Resources and Services Administration ran out of funding for the program on March 22, Stop reimbursement to providers For COVID-19 testing and treatment.Starting Tuesday, HRSA will no longer be payment provider Vaccination for the uninsured.

“If we have to chase payments that may not be possible, then the question becomes, ‘As a lab, do I continue to provide this service?'” said senior vice president Tom Sparkman. Government Affairs and Policy of the American Association for Clinical Laboratories.

Last year, members of the trade association conducted 8 million tests on uninsured patients, Sparkman said. During the omicron wave in January and February, the labs performed 1 million tests on patients who lacked coverage.

Without reimbursement, Curative will no longer be able to offer free testing in some of the 18 states in which it operates, a spokesperson wrote in an email. The company debuted in early 2020 with a focus on sepsis patients, but turned to COVID-19 testing at the start of the pandemic. Curative did not respond to interview requests about the financial impact of the policy or that it will no longer offer free testing to the uninsured.

Quest Diagnostics will start charging uninsured individuals $100 per test, the company announced. In 2021, COVID-19 testing accounted for a fifth of the company’s $10.8 billion in revenue, or $2.8 billion.

RSM’s healthcare partner Rick Kes said hospitals had the means to deal with the end of uninsured funds, but unpaid bills would remain a burden. Unlike retail clinics and labs, which can turn patients away, hospital emergency departments must provide care to people regardless of their ability to pay under longstanding federal law, he said.

“When someone with Covid-19 comes in and they’re in intensive care for about six days, it’s going to be a lot more expensive than offering testing at a retail clinic,” Case said. The impact on profit margins could be significant, he said. Small, but the health system will face more bad debts and have to write off more charity care.

Because safety net hospitals care for the largest number of uninsured patients, they will be the most affected, said Beth Feldpush, senior vice president of policy and advocacy at American Essential Hospitals. Relative to their size and operating profits, these facilities already take on a disproportionate amount of unpaid care. In 2019, safety net hospitals provided $6.9 billion in pro bono services, accounting for 16.5 percent of all care nationwide. The latest data from the organization.

“They’re not going to pick and choose certain services, but it’s a financial loss,” Feldpush said. “They may need to think about where they can save money. Maybe you have to cut hours on weekends, or you may not be open late to let shift workers in. “

Amid other financial pressures, such as higher wages and supply costs, hospitals are still trying to figure out what the end of the program means for them, Feldpush said.

Safety Net Hospitals is also aware of two looming federal policy changes that could lead to a spike in uninsured rates and an increase in the cost of unpaid care. Whenever Biden decides not to update the public health emergency declaration, states will resume the Medicaid redefinition process, which will reduce the number of places. The boosted subsidy that led to record Medicare swap coverage is set to expire at the end of the year.

“It’s going to be a burden,” Feldpush said. “It will stack on top of other existing pressures on hospital finances from the pandemic.”

Safety network Hospital, federal qualified healthy center and Community Clinic, which one Care for A sort of mainly low income population, Bear financial difficulty Early exist This Pandemic forward This federal government Start offerings support pass through program Such as This uninsured fund, Isabel Becerra, CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Centers in Orange County, Calif.

The uninsured fund alleviates this problem, so its expiration will exacerbate existing financial pressures on community clinics, since at least 40 percent of patients are uninsured, Becerra said. “No one is going to be turned away,” she said. “But it may be a while before you can get in.”

Without reinstating the uninsured fund, community health centers will have to shorten hours and reduce staffing, Becerra said. Patients who are turned away by others will turn to safety net providers, resulting in long waits for testing and vaccinations, she said. This, in turn, will prevent people in vulnerable groups from seeking tests and vaccines. In addition to the possible health risks, it would cripple the collection of public health data because there would be fewer test results to analyze, she said.

“It’s not only having a huge financial impact on medical centers across the country,” Becerra said. “It’s as if we haven’t learned anything from the last two years, as if we believe there will be no further variants, as if we Now I believe we are all 100% vaccinated.”