Officials have warned a Jackson, Miss., hospital it could lose Medicare funding if the hospital does not change how it handles emergency care patients.
The Clarion-Ledger reports Merit Health Central Hospital has been criticized for transferring some emergency patients to other hospitals.
Federal law prohibits "patient dumping," in which a hospital transfers patients to another hospital because they can't pay.
Sandra Pace of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wrote to the hospital CEO Lisa Dolan, saying the hospital's approach to emergency patients constitutes an "immediate threat" to their health. Pace says Medicare could sever its ties with the hospital by June 5.
Jana Fuss, a spokeswoman for Merit Health, says Pace's findings are based on incidents from 2013, and the hospital has since corrected its procedures.
