LSU’s medical school in Shreveport faces cuts under current budget

Following a move to transfer funding from the state’s TOPS college scholarship program to safety-net hospitals last Thursday, the LSU Medical School at Shreveport still will be $35.6 million in the red, the chancellor warned Sunday, forcing the school to make cuts to all the medical programs.
During a weekend Senate Finance Committee hearing, LSU Health Sciences Center Interim Chancellor G.E. Ghali testified the cuts to funding could potentially effect the school’s accreditation and residency programs.
All of this stems from House Bill 1, the omnibus funding legislation to run the state during the fiscal year that begins July 1. The bill would reduce funding to state operations to help ease an anticipated $600 million shortfall.
“I’m trying to not discourage students from training at our school, and I’m trying to keep my school accredited,” Ghali said, adding that the reductions to the safety net hospitals around the state would create a “double whammy” effect because the schools receive a significant amount of funds from the hospitals.
The state’s privatization of hospitals came up during the hearing when private partners came to the table to testify the state’s health care system has improved substantially since the signing of the public-private contracts.
However, Ghali challenged the notion that the Shreveport public-private hospital, University Health, has improved since privatization, citing that the health care watchdog organization, Leapfrog Group, gave University Health a hospital safety grade of F.
Steve Skrivanos, the chairman of the University Health Board of Directors, said he was unaware of this grade. University Health scored an F in the spring of 2015, but currently has a C in the Leapfrog Group’s report card.
Larry Hollier, chancellor of the LSU Health Science’s Center in New Orleans, said his school will be underfunded by $15 to $16 million, which would force him to look into closing LSU’s dental hygiene and nurse undergraduate programs.
The Department of Health and Hospitals, which runs the safety-net hospitals with LSU Health Sciences Center, had targeted four of the public-private safety-net hospitals to receive the brunt of the cuts. It did so because if it were spread across all the hospitals, some of the private contractors said they would pull out. So-called safety-net hospitals serve the under-insured and those without health insurance.
Following House amendments to HB1, the Shreveport medical school’s hospital private partners in Shreveport, Alexandria and Monroe are facing a nearly $70 million cut, which would impose the “double whammy” effect Ghali testified.
Hollier and Ghali cautioned that if safety net hospitals received significant cuts, those hospitals may choose to halt the residency training programs, and the state would have to pick up the tab for the medical schools to send those residents out-of-state.
“Since July 2015, we have made a total of $20 million in operating budget reductions,” Ghali said. “We’re as lean as we are going to get.”
Committee member Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, said the state safety-net hospitals are about to become “fragile nets.”