WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) – PEIA funding has remained a top discussion point ever since Jim Kaufman, President and CEO of the West Virginia Hospitals Association, said Wheeling Hospital will no longer accept West Virginia Public Employees Insurance on July 1.

WVU Medicine’s decision to drop these patients is said to be due to their financial struggle from below cost-of-service reimbursements. 

They said in a statement that they have lost $56 million over the past 3 years. 

During Governor Jim Justice’s visit to Wheeling’s Independence Hall on Friday, he mentioned that there will be a solution for PEIA acceptance at the hospitals, but there is not a permanent solution to PEIA overall, right now. 

”The first thing that we put up in my budget is $40 million set aside for our rural hospitals to up the share of the PEIA, to where we’re not going to have a short fall. The last thing in the world that we need to do is the hospitals – our rural hospitals are the life, blood of every one of our communities and without any question, we can’t have our hospitals going into the hole from the standpoint of somebody they are serving with PEIA.”

Gov. Jim Justice – (R) West Virginia

Justice says that although there are so many opinions on this matter, he does not know right now what the permanent fix will be.