AHCCCS Changes Ripple Through Nursing

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I'm sure many nurses are aware of the recent AZ state budgets cuts to AHCCCS but for all others they are rippling through health care agencies and we could see big demand changes in nursing. Hospitals are decrying the budget change that will be devastating to both indigent pts and med residency programs. It could get ugly at all hospitals but especially Maryvale, Children's, and Maricopa since they will now need to pay for all federally mandated ER indigent care. We could see a worsening dr shortage as well.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/01/13/20100113hospitalcuts0113.html

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Specializes in none.

How do you feel this will affect RN's? Do you think they will have more to try to compensate for fewer physicians? Or do you think this will lead to more understaffing across the board? I am working on my prereq's now, its frustrating to think there may not be many jobs when I graduate.

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Some of it's already happened, the rest is just a proposal. Ironic with the current Fed government's push for increased HC when some states can't afford current HC levels.

Fewer AZ HC dollars means scaling back current AZ HC so there would be fewer jobs here. Nurses work under physician's orders and tend to be an overhead cost so nursing jobs would need to be trimmed in proportion.

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I work for Children's, and we are seeing a large impact from the decrease in AZ funding. Hoping that a miracle goes through so I won't lose my job. Already tightening the belt to weather the impact in the budget changes.

I don't have a lot of experience as a nurse, so if I lose my job, it will be pretty devastating. It took me forever to find this job...

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Specializes in ICU, Research, Corrections.

Good post Kabin. Reduction of AHCCCS benefits will be DISASTROUS to every hospital in the state. I work at a hospital that is not mentioned in the article, but I would hazard a guess that perhaps 40% of our inpatients have AHCCCS.

Due to the federal EMTALA law:

http://www.medi-smart.com/cobra2.htm (an easy to understand link of the law intended for nurses)

hospital ERs have to take any pt that walks in the door. It doesn't matter if they have insurance or not. You can not send them away. If they need hospitalization, they can not be turned away.

So...........who is going to pay their hospital bills? Nobody, I guess. The hospitals will just have to eat the cost. This is not going to work out at all. Something has to give and I hope it is not our jobs!

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