Help Our Hospitals That Help Us During Disasters

Allow hospitals and medical centers that provide non-acute but medically necessary care to chronically ill patients during state and federal disasters to apply for special "Medical Refuge" status and payment. Under the current rules, hospitals like St. John's Episcopal Hospital in the Rockaways are not entitled to receive payment for services provided to Medicare and Medicaid patients that they served during and after hurricane Sandy who would have normally been helped by chronic care facilities like nursing homes or doctor's offices - even though those facilities were not available. Small non-profit hospitals and community health centers cannot survive this kind of financial burden and our communities cannot survive disasters without them. Make the rules common sense. Thank you.