As I am sure many of you have heard our own bank accounts are not the only ones that have been affected by the economic crisis!  Shriners Hospitals for Children has also had to make changes as a result of the dip in the economy.  Rather than close any of the 22 hospitals across the nation that serve our children, they have opted to find other means to continue providing exceptional, unsurpassed care to our children that need it.

In an unprecedented move, the Shriners agreed to begin accepting private health insurance.  Beginning in July 2010, the Shriners plan to start billing patient’s insurance companies for the services that they provide.  However, all care will still remain at no cost to the individual’s family directly.  No family will be asked to make co-pays or be billed for deductibles.  Rather the Shriners will write off these charges, assuming the government gives them a waiver, to maintain their mission of providing free specialized medical care for children.

By agreeing to this new method of reimbursement for services, the Shriners are ensuring that even more children will be able to benefit from all they have to offer.  In fact, with generating some additional revenue from insurance payments, the hospitals may be able to even further expand on their state of the art technology related to patient treatments.

Another attempt at cutting costs is to transition several hospitals to outpatient facilities only and maintain others as inpatient facilities for more efficient use of resources.  In addition, the Shriners organization is ramping up their development department to seek additional donations to defray patient care costs. 

Many of you are wondering what direct impact this change will have on the decisions that are made on behalf of our children in terms of treatment planning.  There will be absolutely no change in the philosophy of care at the Shriners Hospitals.  Our children will continue to receive the best care medicine has to offer regardless of insurance or economic status.