Butler Memorial to receive nearly $900K in tobacco settlement funds
Butler Memorial Hospital will receive just shy of $900,000 in reimbursements from tobacco settlement funds for this fiscal year, according to an audit released this week by the state Department of the Auditor General.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy L. DeFoor released audits for 48 hospitals across the commonwealth, including Butler Memorial Hospital, on Wednesday, Oct. 30.
As part of the Master Settlement Agreement, reached in 1998 between 46 U.S. states and four major tobacco companies, Pennsylvania received $11 billion to be distributed between the years 2000 and 2025.
Pennsylvania’s Tobacco Settlement Act of 2001 enabled the state’s Department of Human Services to allocate a portion of the settlement funds to compensate hospitals for the cost of caring for uninsured patients.
Hospitals that qualify to receive settlement money can receive payment through either the “uncompensated care” method or the “extraordinary expense” method, with Butler Memorial Hospital opting for the latter. A hospital can report an “extraordinary expense” claim when the cost of the claim exceeds twice the hospital’s average cost of a claim.
For the fiscal year which ended June 30, 2023, Butler Memorial Hospital reported 11 extraordinary expense claims, of which it was determined that eight met the criteria to qualify for reimbursement. These eight claims added up to exactly $884,694.23 worth of charges.
Of the three claims which did not qualify for reimbursement, one was still an active claim, and another was paid by the patient.
In the hospital’s previous tobacco settlement audit, it reported 11 extraordinary expense claims. Nine of these were accepted, with these claims adding up to more than $936,000.
