During Wednesday night’s Queens Community Board 5 meeting at Christ the King High School, Elmhurst Hospital CEO Dr. Helen Arteaga Landaverde gave a presentation on the upcoming changes to those on Medicaid, updated the community on the status of the hospital and addressed questions from board and audience members alike.
“With what’s going on in the world of politics and the federal government, I thought it was super important to come and let you explain how that’s going to affect the hospital,” Landaverde said. “The new law, whether you want to call it beautiful, ugly or weird, really affects health care.”
Dr. Landaverde said President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is set to drastically increase healthcare premiums by over double starting in January, as well as make other changes that she said will pose an “administrative burden” to all hospitals, not just hers. The largest change will require those on Medicaid to recertify their status every six months, as opposed to annually.
The change is a push by the White House to ensure those receiving federal benefits are “working able” or not, as only those unable to perform a job are considered eligible for Medicaid, though individuals above the age of 65 are exempt. Medicaid will now require recipients to have multiple children under the age of three, as opposed to a single child under four.
One board member, Mariann Lattanzio, asked to clarify if a child receiving Medicaid would need to undergo the recertification process. Dr. Landaverde said that, due to New York State law, all children under the age of five are automatically qualified and do not need to be seen every six months. All children who qualify for Medicaid are registered under their parents, and those over the age of five will need to be recertified.
“So if [the parent] loses it, the children lose it?,” Lattanzio asked, which the doctor confirmed. “How sad is that?”
Elmhurst Hospital is the largest operating in Queens, with 1.2 million members, which equates to one in two of every adult in the borough. Missing a recertification appointment and losing members creates issues for the hospital, as getting Medicaid or Medicare approved takes anywhere from six to eight months, according to Dr. Landaverde, who stated that the “paperwork is not easy” and often has language barriers. However, Elmhurst Hospital representatives speak 138 different languages and has 27 enrollers dedicated to helping people fill out the documents by translating them into their native language.
“I know it’s horrible,” Dr. Landaverde said in an aside to a board member. “When we do the certification, which right now is once a year, we lose about 2,000 members.”
Elmhurst Hospital has the 13th busiest Emergency Department (ED) in the country, and Dr. Landaverde says those 2,000 members losing coverage every six months will create further problems for the department by losing around $80,000 of its revenue every month. In her speech, Dr. Landaverde made special note to remind anyone who receives Medicare or Medicaid to check their mail, as that is the only way the federal government will notify them if they need to undergo the recertification process.
“I’m also very proud of the work that we’re doing here at Elmhurst Hospital, because we’re not letting this stop the mission and the quality of work that we’re giving,” Dr. Landaverde said. “We’re still making sure that we’re striving to make sure all of our doctors, our residents, our nurses and everyone from the housekeeper all the way to myself that we’re making sure that we’re standing strong with our community when you need us the most.”
