Hospitals

House Bill 702 had barred employers from mandating vaccines or requiring employees share their vaccine status. U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled that it was unconstitutional and conflicted with federal law.

Montana is signaling it might step away from an innovative way of setting the prices its public employee health plan pays hospitals for services, an approach that has saved the state millions of dollars and become a model for health plans nationwide.

How Republicans in Montana hijacked public health and brought a hospital to the brink

More than two years into the pandemic, hospital budgets are beginning to crack. One of the biggest drivers of financial shortfalls has been the cost to find workers.

In an email sent to employees, CEO John Hill said the decision was not performance related. He said rising health care costs, inflationary pressure and labor shortages are impacting the health care system’s revenue.

St. Vincent Healthcare will replace its main building with one that adds 42 rooms and 180,000 square feet to its Billings campus, the equivalent of almost two city blocks.

A report from the Montana Healthcare Foundation found that enrollees in Montana’s Medicaid expansion program needed less emergency care after having health coverage.

Montana’s largest hospital system is expanding its resources to become the region’s most comprehensive medical center for injury and trauma care.

Montana’s governor pushed the state’s health workers to seek religious exemptions to a federal mandate to be vaccinated against covid, but the number who have done so is unknown.