Becker's Hospital Review

14 CFO / FINANCE Hospitals are $3,700-per-day hotels for patients in limbo, UC Davis says By Ayla Ellison W hen patients have nowhere to go aer being medically cleared for discharge, they may end up be- ing unnecessarily hospitalized for months or even years, according to UC Davis Health. ese patients, who are stuck in "healthcare limbo," no longer need the specialized care offered at an academic medical center like Sacramento, Calif.-based UC Davis Medi- cal Center, but they don't have the resources, family, or the physical or mental capacity to be discharged on their own, said J. Douglas Kirk, MD, chief medical officer of UC Davis Health. Dr. Kirk said there may be as many as 12 pa- tients at the hospital on any given day who have been hospitalized for more than three months without the need for the level of care offered at the hospital. One patient has been hospitalized at UC Davis for more than four years. "e original medical needs of that individ- ual and other extreme length-of-stay patients have been addressed," the health system said. "Now they have no one and no place to go where their chronic needs can be met." For patients who need little or no acute care, a hospital room becomes an expensive hotel room. e average daily inpatient cost in Cali- fornia is about $3,700, according to UC Davis. "No one should have to remain in a hospital when they don't need to be," Dr. Kirk said. "It's not good for anyone's health or well-be- ing to remain hospitalized long aer they've been treated and healed. It's also not good for the rest of the community, for the healthcare costs we all have to pay, and it's especially unfair to the other patients who need our services and hospital beds." UC Davis Health said there are several issues that need to be addressed to reduce the num- ber of patients who remain unnecessarily hospitalized in Sacramento, including im- proving and streamlining access to assisted living support services, building more bed capacity for individuals with severe demen- tia and long-term psychiatric conditions, and reducing the time it takes to get a court-ap- pointed conservator assigned to patients. n UPMC can build hospital near competitor, court rules By Alia Paavola P ittsburgh-based UPMC can now build a hospital near its competitor after a Pennsylvania appellate court overturned a zoning board ruling Aug. 9, according to court documents. A three-judge panel for the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the Borough of Jefferson Hills Zoning Hearing Board was wrong when it decided in 2019 that the borough's zoning code only allowed one medical center, Allegheny Health Network's Jef- ferson Hospital, to be present in areas zoned as "office park." UPMC filed a zoning permit application with the borough in Au- gust 2018 for a proposed development called UPMC South. In the application, UPMC described the development as a medical center that would have a hospital, medical clinics, physician offices and a helipad. In October 2018, a zoning officer notified UPMC via letter that he had approved its zoning application. Residents in the area ap- pealed the officer's decision to the zoning board. After 11 hearings, the zoning board found that it did not have per- mission under the borough's zoning ordinance to grant approval to UPMC to build a new medical center and that the zoning offi- cer had initially erred in granting the sought-after zoning permit in 2018. A trial court in August 2020 upheld the zoning board decision, concluding that the board properly determined that UPMC was not permitted by right to build its desired medical center. The appellate court has reversed the trial court's decision. n Northwell loses COVID-19 coverage lawsuit By Ayla Ellison N ew Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health is unable to collect insurance cov- erage for lost revenue and higher costs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, a New York federal judge ruled July 26. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that North- well can't collect $1.25 billion in coverage un- der commercial property insurance plans it purchased from Lexington Insurance Co. and Interstate Fire & Casualty Co. because the health system could not show that its properties suf- fered direct physical loss or damage, according to Law360. "Northwell fails to state a claim for breach of contract to provide interruption by commu- nicable disease coverage because Northwell does not plausibly allege that state and local orders regulating the spread of COVID-19 de- clared uninhabitable and prohibited access to Northwell facilities," Mr. Rakoff wrote in a mem- orandum order. The judge dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice. Northwell filed the lawsuit in February after the insurers told the health system that its claim for reimbursement of COVID-19-related costs and losses were not covered under the policies. n

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