The state’s health care regulatory board reinstated part of the budget for the Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans on Thursday.
The Green Mountain Care Board voted unanimously to reinstate the entire budget that the hospital had requested for fiscal year 2016. That brings the Northwestern Medical Center’s budget to $96.2 million, the fifth-highest hospital budget in the state.
Northwestern Medical Center proposed the $96.2 million budget earlier this year, and the board reduced it by $1.5 million. In percentage terms, the hospital had proposed charging insurance companies 8 percent less than last year; the board imposed a 10 percent reduction in its September decision.
The hospital almost immediately appealed to have the budget reinstated. Jill Berry Bowen, the chief executive officer of the hospital, and Ted Sirotta, the chief financial officer, then made a presentation Thursday asking to have its full $96.2 million budget reinstated, on the condition that Northwestern “invest” in population health.
The hospital is planning to expand programs to improve the health of vulnerable populations. It will participate in a national program called “EPODE” aimed at reducing childhood obesity and move toward lifestyle medicine that teaches people to keep themselves healthy.
About $1.1 million will come from changing the rates Northwestern charges insurance companies in fiscal year 2016 from -10 percent back to -8 percent. The remaining $400,000 will come from revenue that hospital officials didn’t know they would receive back when they submitted the budget.
“Let’s take the money and reinvest it into something that can really make an impact on the community so they won’t need as much acute care,” Bowen said in an interview. “A hospital isn’t about treatment; it’s about health.”
As part of the budget appeal, Northwestern proposed to hire four part-time workers: a dietician and athletic trainer to work in a lifestyle clinic; a lifestyle medicine assistant, and a tobacco treatment specialist.
Northwestern also proposed five full-time positions: a wellness coach who would integrate herself into an at-risk school; two nurses who would work as care managers; and two social workers or psychologists who would be involved in primary care.
The hospital would budget $40,000 to research how hospitals across the state could participate in the “EPODE” program, $25,000 for leadership training, and $100,000 for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the program.
Bowen told the board the hospital needs to “test this program out.” Without the $1.1 million budget increase, she said the hospital would fund pieces of the population health program and take more time to implement it.
“If there’s any way we can accommodate this, I want to support it,” said Con Hogan, a member of the Green Mountain Care Board.
Betty Rambur, a board member who works as a nursing professor, also said she supported the program. Rambur was the only “nay” vote on the Northeastern Regional Medical Center’s budget request on Wednesday.
Al Gobielle, the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, said he had told Bowen in a previous conversation that he would support the project if she made a formal presentation.
Gobielle also said the two requests for budget increases this week suggested that hospitals should be submit multi-year budgets in the future.
