VermontBiz Today, the Green Mountain Care Board is starting FY24 hospital budget hearings using new evidence-based tools to examine expense growth against established national and regional benchmarks. This approach will allow GMCB to evaluate how rising hospital costs should impact charges that are passed on Vermonters with commercial insurance.
“Overall, the hospital budget requests are high again this year, with only 2 of 14 hospitals meeting the two-year budget guidance for net patient revenue growth,” said Owen Foster, GMCB Chair. “With GMCB’s new data tools, we will be looking at hospitals’ expenses compared to national trends and benchmarks to identify ways to avoid any unnecessary expenses. The goal is to contain costs and limit how much Vermonters have to pay for health care while ensuring Vermonters can access the care they need.”
As part of its budget review process, GMCB will review and establish a Net Patient Revenue growth cap for each hospital for FY24. GMCB’s guidance set an 8.6% Net Patient Revenue growth target over two-years, 2022-2024. The FY24 hospital budget requests would result in a systemwide 19.1% growth in total Net Patient Revenue from FY22 actuals to FY24 budgets.
Through its hospital budget process, GMCB will carefully and thoroughly review the budget for each of Vermont’s community hospitals and leverage new evidence-based tools to fulfill GMCB’s duty to establish budgets for each hospital that are consistent with GMCB’s statutory requirements.
GMCB has also started a statewide community engagement project to support hospital transformation by identifying community-informed opportunities to improve the sustainability of Vermont’s health care system. GMCB has retained an expert in health care system transformation who will be working directly with community members, businesses, hospitals, and health care organizations to ensure a wide range of voices are represented in these discussions. Vermonters are encouraged to learn more and sign up for emails about community meetings in their region by
visiting GMCB’s Hospital Sustainability webpage.
The schedule of hearings is available here, and Vermonters can view hearings by following the links included on the agendas for each day, available here. Public comment is open at every hearing and a special public comment period here.
About: The Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) is a 5-member, independent Board with a vision of a sustainable and equitable health care system that promotes better health outcomes for Vermonters. The GMCB was created in 2011 with an ambitious mission to drive system-wide improvements in access, affordability, and quality of health care to improve the health of Vermonters. Through public meetings, the GMCB ensures a transparent approach to health care regulation and a voice for stakeholders, including health care organizations, clinicians, and members of the public. With a holistic, data driven approach, the GMCB carries out its regulatory duties, supports innovation in health care delivery and payment reform, and serves as an important resource for independent, transparent analyses of Vermont’s health care system performance.
