State officials are asking lawmakers to increase licensing fees for Oregon hospitals to fund its unit that licenses and investigates them. However, hospital officials and supporters say the costs would burden financially struggling hospitals and be passed on to patients.
In recent years, some hospitals have cited losses while closing services and facilities while juggling costly new mandates..
Meanwhile, the Oregon Health Authority has been tasked with overseeing a slew of new rules, but fees that fund its program that oversees licensing investigations and inspections has been flat since 2009, André Ourso, head of the agency’s health protection program, told the Oregon Senate Health Care Committee Tuesday. In the same period, lawmakers passed more than 15 new hospital licensing requirements that have meant more work for regulators.
The number of serious and complex allegations the agency investigates keeps going up. The number of complaints that claimed that hospital conditions placed a patient at risk of severe harm or death more than quadrupled between 2021 and 2023 alone, from 3 to 14, Ourso said, and the overall number of complaints received more than doubled since 2017.
Senate Bill 842 would increase hospital licensing fees five-fold. The amount each would pay would depend on their size. Fees for hospitals with fewer than 26 beds would increase from $1,250 to $6,250. Meanwhile, fees for hospitals with 500 beds or more would increase from $12,070 to $60,350.
The Hospital Association of Oregon opposes the bill. Travis Meuwissen, the group’s government affairs director, told lawmakers that more than half of Oregon hospitals are losing money from rising costs and insufficient reimbursements. Hospitals, he said, are “making tough choices on what services they can offer.”
Meuwissen noted the agency’s substantial growth in recent years, adding, “This bill would divert resources away from patient care to fund OHA.”.
Hospital executives complained to lawmakers that the health authority’s red tape has already prevented them from adding equipment and services. Eric Swanson, president of Adventist Health Tillamook, said that the health authority’s process to approve the health system’s plans for a reopened dialysis center has been “a slow drip of continuous questions over email.”
Ourso said that the authority will use the money to hire more staff and develop a database that will lead to reduced costs overall. He said the increased fees would still be lower than in Washington, where a 50-bed hospital pays about $75,000 and a 550-bed hospital pays $277,000.
According to the agency, “Limited resources for the hospital licensing program have led to less outreach to impacted people, less timely investigations, and less assistance for individuals who speak a language other than English or who experience other communication barriers.”
Legislative analysts have not estimated how much revenue the bill would generate.
