The Health Sciences Center is seeking post-Hurricane Katrina solutions for the injured LSU System’s hospitals and medical school.
The center appealed to the federal government and is still waiting for approval on a Medicaid waiver, which would allow graduates of the center to work in private hospitals temporarily. The center is also seeking federal assistance to re-open and boost the system’s hospitals.
Don Smithburg, chief executive officer of LSU Healthcare Services Division, said the center’s students do not have many opportunities to work in the system’s hospitals because several were closed following Katrina. The waiver would allow the students to complete some of their time in residency at other hospitals in the area.
“We’re asking for a waiver under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a move of trainees to a non-traditional environment,” Smithburg said.
Smithburg said the federal government has to approve the center in order to make sure the medical students are training in an appropriate location.
“I think CMS is able to work with us on the waiver situation,” said Larry Hollier, chancellor of the University’s Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. “We were very pleased with that. They were very supportive of what we need to turn this around.”
The Health Sciences Center is crucial to the medical education system in Louisiana because the center trains 75 percent of the state’s doctors.
Tulane Medical School has applied for the waiver as well.
The Health Sciences Center oversees the system’s hospitals, and Smithburg said the center is expecting federal assistance.
“President Bush signed a bill so that the government would pay all the Medicaid bills [for the system’s hospitals] through next summer,” Smithburg said.
The center is trying to prop up the University Hospital on Federal Emergency Management Agency money, Smithburg said.
Hollier said the LSU System is seeing changes for the better in the hospital system.
“We’ve made progress,” Hollier said after a meeting between the Board of Supervisors and the system’s hospitals’ representatives. “We started class four weeks after the storm with 95 percent of [LSU System] students coming back.”
The Health Sciences Center is hoping for a $90 million emergency infusion, promised by the state. Although time is running out, Hollier remains optimistic about what the center is doing.
Smithburg said researchers have returned to New Orleans, medical students will return by the summer and the dental students will return by fall.
 
Contact Justin Fritscher at [email protected]