Vermont Business Magazine After completing its review of Vermont’s hospitals’ budget requests for fiscal year 2016, the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) has set the total fiscal year 2016 budget increase for Vermont’s hospital system at 3.5%, including 0.5% that qualifies as investments in health reform. This marks the third year in a row that Vermont’s 14 hospitals as a group have kept net patient revenue increases at or below the target set by the GMCB. Total revenue would be $2.3 billion or $77 million more than in 2015 for the 14 community hospitals. FY 2016 begins October 1.

In written guidance issued in March 2013 and reiterated this spring, the GMCB instructed hospitals to hold their FY16 net patient revenue increase to no more than 3 percent plus an allowance of up to an additional 0.6 percentage points for investments in health care reform initiatives. Net patient revenue includes payments hospitals receive from patients, government, and insurers to pay for patient care – but not revenues from other activities such as cafeterias, parking, and philanthropy.

Hospitals submitted budget requests in July, starting a two-month review process that included GMCB staff scrutiny of the budgets, open hearings with each hospital in August, a public comment period, input from the Office of the Health Care Advocate, and discussion in GMCB’s weekly open meetings. The second key indicator of growth in hospital revenue is the “rate” – the increase in the price a hospital sets for services before negotiating with insurers.

The GMCB approved rates ranging from -10.0 percent change to 6.0 percent change for Vermont hospitals in fiscal year 2016. (See attachments for details of individual hospital and system-wide revenues and rates.)

FY16 Hospital Budget Narratives, Analyses, Responses, and Presentations

Source: GMCB 9.10.2015. For more information on the GMCB hospital budget review process, including submissions from each hospital and their responses to GMCB questions on those submissions, see the GMCB website: http://gmcboard.vermont.gov/hospitalbudgets.