New York City Health + Hospitals will get nearly $1 billion it had requested from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for expenses related to the city’s opening wave of COVID-19 patients, health system and government leaders announced during a press conference Wednesday.
The system had initially filed its request in October 2020, citing the need to hire additional clinical staff and expand capacity.
However, the federal agency initially denied about $600 million of the $864 million ask under the pretense that NYC Health + Hospitals had included additional hospital operations costs unrelated to COVID-19 in its request.
President and CEO Mitchell Katz, M.D., contested the decision, arguing in a June letter that the distinction was “artificial” as every corner of New York City Health + Hospitals was impacted by the virus.
Katz and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed yesterday during the event held outside of the Bronx’s Lincoln Hospital that FEMA had reversed its position and agreed to pass along the rest of the requested funds. They each credited the change in heart to pressure from legislators Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), both of whom were also in attendance.
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“Every time I talked to Mitch Katz, he said, ‘We need to do more.’ I said, do it right now. Do not hesitate. Do it now,” de Blasio said during the event. “And we believed our federal government would be there, but we now know the money wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressmember Ritchie Torres. They saved the day. Thank all of you and God bless them.”
“Thank you so much, Senator, and thank you for proving that the federal government can work,” Katz said. “Under you, it can work. We can get what we deserve.”
Katz had written in the June letter that the city-run system was in a dangerous financial situation without the funding. It had spent billions to prepare for and treat patients under the assumption that the emergency expenses would be covered by the federal government.
As of March, NYC Health + Hospitals said it had spent more than $1.6 billion on its COVID-19 response and was committed to nearly $2 billion prior to the spread of the delta variant. Thousands of New Yorkers had died of the virus within the pandemic’s first few months alone.
“New York City was the earliest epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, and Health + Hospitals was hit the hardest because you serve the most vulnerable among us,” Torres said during the event.
“We told FEMA two words: pay up. FEMA finally listened,” Schumer said. “So it’s a clean bill of health, we got this job done.”
Hospitals across the country are looking forward to a new $25.5 billion wave of pandemic relief funds announced this month by the Department of Health and Human Services. That money, a combination of the American Rescue Plan Act and CARES Act funds, will prioritize organizations that lost revenue and faced higher expenses between July 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021.