Mapp sought additional federal support for Virgin Islands healthcare

Gov. Kenneth E. Mapp met with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials on April 12, 2018, to seek additional federal support for the U.S. Virgin Islands' hospitals and Medicaid system, according to Government House.

Government House said the territory's two hospitals — Roy L. Schneider Medical Center and Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital — were being reimbursed under Medicare using cost schedules from 1982 and 1996, respectively. It said the reimbursement levels left the hospitals underpaid by millions of dollars each year.

The administration said some federal fee schedules for costly procedures, including joint replacement and chemotherapy, needed adjustment. It said chemotherapy drugs could cost as much as $14,000 per treatment while Medicare paid only a fraction of that amount, leaving the hospitals and local government to absorb the remaining costs.

Government House said Mapp asked HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma to support a higher, state-like federal Medicaid match rate for the territory and to address what it described as a future Medicaid funding shortfall.

The statement also said earlier federal action had temporarily waived the local match for disaster-related Medicaid funding through 2019 under the supplemental disaster bill passed in February 2018.

Official source: https://www.vi.gov/governor-mapp-asks-health-and-human-services-secretary-for-more-support-for-vi-healthcare/