{"id":185473,"date":"2026-05-06T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/185473\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:03:09","slug":"report-claims-several-pittsburgh-area-hospitals-could-be-at-risk-of-closing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/185473\/","title":{"rendered":"Report claims several Pittsburgh area hospitals could be at risk of closing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A report<\/a>\u00a0from Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog, has identified several local hospitals \u2013 which could be at risk of closing.<\/p>\n

The catalyst? Cuts to Medicaid and other government health programs.<\/p>\n

On the list from Southwestern Pennsylvania are UPMC McKeesport, UPMC Mercy and UPMC Greene \u2013 along with Highlands Hospital in Connellsville, Fayette County.<\/p>\n

Public Citizen talked about cuts to Medicaid and other programs from a federal spending bill passed last year by Congress and the President that contributed to this list.<\/p>\n

It also said there are two main criteria that went into this — if 20% or greater of a hospital’s “payer mix” comes from Medicaid, CHIP, and the low-income government program from 2022 through 2024 \u2013 and if the hospital has negative net profit margins during those years as well? It made it.<\/p>\n

UPMC called some of the methods in which the report was compiled “flawed.”<\/p>\n

“Recent news reports speculating that certain UPMC hospitals, including UPMC Mercy, run the risk of closure because of recent federal budget cuts to Medicaid reimbursement are based on a highly suspect and flawed analysis that failed to recognize that every UPMC hospital operates as part of the strong integrated UPMC system\u2026not as standalone, individually operated hospitals,” Susan Manko, a spokesperson, said.<\/p>\n

“UPMC’s “systemness” allows each of our 40+ hospitals to leverage systemwide resources, systemwide infrastructure, and systemwide expertise to help ensure their long-term stability\u2026and helps our caregivers to continue to provide their patients with high-quality care. UPMC will continue to monitor and evaluate the potential impacts of Federal legislative and executive branch actions and will always be committed to supporting access to essential care for our patients across the communities we serve.”<\/p>\n

“Penn Highlands Healthcare hospitals have been entrusted to provide care to the area communities for more than 100 years, and we have a long-term commitment,” Penn Highlands Healthcare, which has Highlands Hospital Connellsville under its umbrella, said.<\/p>\n

“We continue to recruit physicians and advanced practice providers and add or adjust services to help the health system grow. While the health system is committed to helping serve the community health needs, rural healthcare is at a crossroads, and rural health systems like Penn Highlands need additional funding and support from local, state and federal government to continue to provide care.”<\/p>\n

Public Citizen has not yet responded to KDKA’s request for an interview or a comment as of the posting of this story.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A report\u00a0from Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog, has identified several local hospitals \u2013 which could be at risk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7939,73,75,74,1785],"class_list":["post-185473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-medicaid","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-upmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}