Iowa hospitals are scrambling to keep up with patient demand after Medicaid funding cuts enacted by the Trump administration.

The reductions have led to staffing and service shortages, and some clinics have already reduced how many patients they see and what services they provide.

Dr. Kimiya Nourian, a physician at Iowa City hospital, said rural hospitals are at the greatest risk of drastically reducing services or closing altogether when they lose Medicaid reimbursement funding. She said that shifts the burden of care onto patients.

“That kind of forces those patients to travel to the more urban centers to receive their care,” Nourian said. “Some patients I've seen are traveling two hours to get to a clinic appointment. So that's four hours a day just to see a specialist.”

MercyOne has announced it will close a southside Des Moines clinic in June, citing staff cuts due to a lack of funding.

The Trump administration has said it is trying to right-size Medicaid with the changes. The federal government has also approved $187 billion in cuts to food and nutrition assistance programs, including SNAP.

Nourian said future cuts and staffing shortages could create a domino effect that overwhelms local hospitals and community clinics.

“I kind of think about it in the most simplest terms, like, if you close down all the ice cream shops in your town and you only have one open, everyone's gonna go to that one, and the employees in that one are not gonna be able to keep up with the amount of customers they have,” she said. “And I feel like it is becoming that way.”

Health system advocates say the rush of patients and lack of services will also mean longer wait times for people who need emergency care.

Source: Public News Service