Gov. Rick Scott has given hospitals and health insurers less than a week to provide a wide range of data that will be considered by a newly formed commission on health care funding.
Scott sent a letter Wednesday to hospital and insurance-company executives requesting that they submit the data by Monday.
That deadline is two days before Scott's Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding will meet in Tallahassee. Scott wrote in the letter that he is requesting information on "your services, profits, costs and patient outcomes" and that the commission will review the information next week.
The governor's office also provided forms that, for example, seek data from hospitals about their financial margins, local tax revenues, average costs per patient per day, numbers of patients referred for collections, numbers of contracts with managed-care plans, numbers of full-time employees, personnel expenses, numbers of inpatient admissions and most-common inpatient conditions and procedures.
Scott formed the commission, which does not include hospital executives, amid a legislative budget impasse and clashes with the federal government about extending the $2.2 billion Low Income Pool program.
The so-called LIP program, scheduled to expire June 30, funnels money to hospitals and other health providers that serve large numbers of uninsured patients.
In a letter Wednesday to Scott, the massive Broward Health hospital system pointed to the possibility of losing $93 million, which it said would be "catastrophic and would have an immediate adverse effect" on the system.
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