Central Health, Ascension Texas sue over care for low-income residents

After years of failed negotiations over health care services to low-income residents and payments for those services, Central Health, the Travis County health care district, filed suit Tuesday against Ascension Texas, a nationwide chain of hospitals and health care facilities. Ascension Texas operates Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas as well as Dell Children’s Medical Center.

The health care district accused Ascension of breach of contract by failing to provide medical care to low-income residents enrolled in the Medical Access Program, or MAP, and to indigent people through another program.

The suit asserts breach of contract claims against Ascension and is seeking a judicial declaration that will trigger an option for Central Health to purchase the Dell Seton Medical Center. In addition, Central Health is seeking $1 million in damages and attorneys’ fees. Attorney Casey Dobson of Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP is representing Central Health.

Also Tuesday, Ascension Texas filed suit against Central Health alleging that the agency overenrolled people in the program for indigent patients “while refusing to adjust its reimbursement to Ascension Seton for such services accordingly.” Ed McHorse at McGinnis Lochridge & Kilgore represents Ascension.

In its news release, Ascension Seton claimed that Central Health has overenrolled and underfunded the indigent health care program for years. According to Ascension, as the population of Travis County has continued to grow over the past five years, “demand for MAP services has far exceeded the number of individuals the program was designed and funded to support.” During that time, Ascension claims it has continued to provide equitable care for all MAP patients.

Central Health claims that Ascension has failed to provide health care services to charity and MAP patients at the levels agreed upon in 2013. “In the 2022 contract year, Ascension served approximately 8,000 fewer patients in the hospital, compared with the 2013 contract year, reflecting a roughly 21 percent reduction,” the district says.

Mike Geeslin, president & CEO of Central Health, said in written comments, “Ascension’s persistent failures to honor its contractual commitments left Central Health with no choice but to file a lawsuit to hold Ascension accountable for not providing adequate, equitable health care services for people with low income in Travis County. Their practices have caused real harm to the people we serve.”

Ascension claims that Central Health’s contingency reserves have multiplied eightfold in the past five years, currently sitting at more than $300 million, even as there are unmet needs in the population the agency was created to serve. The public entity is also incurring significant new administrative expenses, such as a new headquarters facility, which will come at a reported cost of $63 million.

“We question the need for maintaining such large reserves of taxpayer dollars when the critical health care programs those dollars are intended for remain underfunded,” said Andy Davis, president and CEO of Ascension Texas. “We are disappointed to see that Central Health is attempting to distort the facts surrounding demand for MAP services and the nature of our agreement. We are confident that the legal process will result in a solution that provides adequate funding for the MAP program moving forward.”

Dobson told the Austin Monitor he expects the lawsuits to continue for several years.

Photo by Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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