Alternative Headline: Weiss Hospital Loses Medicaid
[MM Curator Summary]: Weiss Memorial Hospital — a staple for Medicaid and Medicare patients in the area — closed its ER after losing Medicaid and Medicare access due to care standard violations.
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Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood has closed its emergency department as it was set to lose Medicaid access this weekend.
The Department of Health and Human Services is removing Weiss from the federal health care programs, saying the hospital failed to meet its standards of care.
In addition, there have been multiple reports of mistreatment and unclean facilities at the Hospital. The Illinois Department of Public Health has investigated those claims seven times.
The news dealt a devastating hit to the community, finding the hospital’s removal from Medicaid and Medicare, and its potential closure, terrifying, saying it would be a catastrophe.
Marc Kapan, an organizer with Northside Action for Justice, said the hospital is an anchor of the community.
"Very much a hospital for seniors and elders in our community," he said. "Low-income elders that really don’t have any other options."
One man, who is originally from Vietnam, spoke to CBS News Chicago through an interpreter, saying, "My health fluctuates through time, but every single time that I’ve needed a hospital, it’s always been there for me."
He added that Weiss helped him overcome colon cancer; he’s now in remission.
"This hospital right now serves over 50% Medicare and 30% Medicaid, and that’s 80% of the revenue is from Medicare and Medicaid, and if they lose their funding from the federal CMS, they won’t be able to be sustainable long-term," said Illinois state Rep. Hoan Huynh (D-Chicago).
Huynh said he’s been in touch with hospital owner Manoj Prasad, who had promised to fix the issues after buying the hospital in 2022. That hasn’t happened.
"When leadership took over, we were working with them to make sure these changes happen, right, there’s infrastructure changes, there’s operational changes," Huynh said. "Obviously, they have not happened yet."
A nurse in the hospital’s Emergency Department told the Chicago Sun-Times they were informed of that decision by their supervisor, and also noted that no staff schedule has been set beyond Saturday.
ER nurse at Weiss Hospital says facility appears to be closed 02:52
Daniel Maser, who is an ER nurse for the hospital, told CBS News Chicago the first thing he did this morning was ask his coworkers about what was happening in the facility.
"This morning when I woke up, I just texted my coworkers just to get an update and see how things are playing out just to see what actually happened, and then it sound like we were just closed. Lights turned off, even security didn’t really know exactly what to do, so they just closed the doors," he said.
On Friday, doctors, nurses, and staff, along with elected officials, plan to rally the hospital’s closure at 1 p.m.
Rep. Hoan Huynh on possible Weiss Memorial Hospital closure, rally Friday 05:17
Huynh said he will be joining the group rallying to keep the hospital open.
"This was a failure of epic proportions," Huynh said.
CBS News Chicago has learned more about the exact reasons the hospital was deemed noncompliant with federal rules.
Notably, a July 12 report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not cite the hospital’s broken air conditioning as a reason. Rather, the report detailed multiple failures related to nursing care, along with a failure related to pharmaceutical record-keeping.
The owner of the hospital said their license was put on hold as of 7 a.m. Friday. However, they do plan to appeal, reapply, and reopen in the future. That process could take up to a year.
All outpatient services will continue as they have not been impacted.
Ald. Angela Clay (46th Ward) commented on the closing, saying, "For now, I stand with community organizations, neighbors, and advocates who are calling on the State of Illinois and the Federal government to do everything in their power to save Weiss Hospital."
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/weiss-hospital-kicked-off-medicare-medicaid-closure/
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