Boston Medical Center, where I trained for residency, is going through some tough times.
With the highest proportion of poor and indigent patients in the city, they were disproportionally hurt when Massachusetts chose to lower Medicaid payments.
The direct result was the announcement that they would lay of 250 employees. The reductions were widespread, including “clinical and administrative services . . . including obstetrics, primary care, pediatrics, family medicine, geriatrics, laboratory, radiology, nursing, endoscopy, urology, and ophthalmology. Interpreter services, information technology, public safety, and dietary services are also seeing cuts.”
At a time when the hospital “is seeing record numbers of patients,” there will now be longer wait times, less ancillary staff to support clinicians, an inability to obtain an interpreter, and less staff to do public outreach.
This is precisely why patients lose whenever payments are cut.
