Colorado to advance $1.4 million to cash-strapped Western Slope hospital

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A Delta County hospital that said Medicare loans drained its cash will get more than $1.4 million in advance payments from the state, but it’s not clear if that will be enough to stabilize it.

Board members of Delta Health, which owns Delta County Memorial Hospital and clinics on the Western Slope, on Monday said they had recently discovered almost all of their cash on hand was committed to paying off debts — meaning they had money in the bank, but couldn’t use it.

Board chair Jean Ceriani said Delta Health would be able to make payroll the next time checks were due, but would be seeking help to get through the cash crunch.

The hospital had been losing money for years, but Ceriani blamed the immediate crisis on the need to repay $11 million in advances from Medicare late last year.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had essentially loaned hospitals some of their expected future payments to get them through the worst points of the pandemic, but when the time came to repay them, hospitals also were dealing with rising labor and supply costs.

Marc Williams, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, on Friday said the department planned to advance Delta Health, by day’s end, a payment of $653,060 from the Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise, or CHASE, that it was supposed to receive in April and May.

Delta Health also will receive $818,262 in June payments from CHASE by April 21, he said. The payments aren’t loans, but an early delivery of money the hospital was already going to receive, Williams said.

All hospitals are expected to receive more payments through CHASE in June than in May as the department switches to its 2023 rates, Williams said. Hospitals pay a fee into CHASE, which is used to draw matching federal funds and redistributed to the hospitals. Some of the money is used to offset the cost of uncompensated care, while some goes toward covering people who became eligible when the state expanded Medicaid.

Representatives for Delta Health on Friday said they were still working through the process, and would discuss it with staff before making public statements.

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