Smith said Sunday <\/a>on 77 WABC\u2019s \u201cCats Roundtable.\u201d<\/p>\nHe and other Congress members grilled NY-Presbyterian CEO Brian Donley about the \u201crural\u201d category, with Smith claiming it was done to get \u201cspecial benefits afforded to hospitals with the tag.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him how his flagship hospital in Manhattan off of 68th St. can be designated as rural. I haven\u2019t seen very many farms in Manhattan,\u201d Smith told radio host John Catsimatidis. \u201cThere\u2019s a loophole in the system that allows him to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
NewYork-Presbyterian isn\u2019t the only non-rural hospital treated as one \u2014 Smith said 425 different hospitals have received rural funding over the past six years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are things we\u2019ve got to clean up,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
The Ways and Means Committee released a statement that said, \u201cThis is a prime example of why rural Americans face challenges accessing care and how benefits allocated for rural hospitals end up in exams rooms in big cities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said the health care system is so out of control that NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is designated as a \u201crural\u201d medical facility to obtain more federal funding. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n
Donley defended Presbyterian\u2019s rural designation because it receives 8,000 patient referrals from rural hospitals every year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re proud to take care of those patients,\u201d Donley said during his testimony.<\/p>\n
The hospital said in a statement to The Post that \u201censuring access to high\u2011quality health care for\u00a0rural\u00a0communities is critically important.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe qualify as a\u00a0Rural\u00a0Referral Center under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services allowing us to deliver complex and specialized care to those communities\u2014we treat patients from all 50 states,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Appearing on WABC\u2019s \u201cCats Roundtable,\u201d Smith also noted that 425 other hospitals have received rural funding since 2020. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just the latest federal scrutiny of the NY-Presbyterian Hospital and Health System.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the system in March, alleging the hospital was using its market share to strike \u201cunlawful contracts\u201d with insurers to prevent patients from being shown less expensive health plans.<\/p>\n
NY-Presbyterian said the lawsuit was \u201cwithout merit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said he\u2019s concerned about growing consolidation of healthcare providers leading to monopolistic practices, particularly citing hospitals buying doctors\u2019 medical practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey receive higher reimbursement rates than what doctors do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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He claimed a hospital in Florida charged a patient $13,000 for an emergency CT-scan that cost just $79 in a doctor\u2019s office during a follow-up visit.<\/p>\n
In general, Smith said the healthcare system is \u201cbroken\u201d because hospitals, health insurers, drug manufacturers and medical-device manufacturers have too much clout in the halls of Congress through their lobbying arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy it\u2019s gotten out of control is that so many people are not willing to rock the boat when it comes to looking at these issues and getting the facts out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have so many people hired here trying to protect their carve outs. Their special reimbursements. Their special provisions. And when you start trying to shake the ship, man, people start getting nervous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the time that this Titanic starts turning,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to end well if we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s calling it a certified country crock! A top House Republican railed over NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital being classified as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[8741,55933,97,252,253,5871,269682,21450,5599,2897,145415,194],"class_list":["post-622248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-federal-budget","tag-government-spending","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-metro","tag-new-york-presbyterian-hospital","tag-patients","tag-public-health","tag-spending","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}