The five hospitals that carry Denton in their names would pay a little more than half of a roughly $107.9 million yearly charge that Denton County levies on hospitals, under a revised rate that commissioners take up at a public hearing Tuesday morning.
The charge is the county's Local Provider Participation Fund, a mandatory payment hospitals make under Chapter 292E of the Texas Health and Safety Code. Commissioners approved the fiscal 2027 payments on Sept. 29. A proposed order on the Nov. 3 agenda says there is now good cause to change how the payment is figured.
What changes
Under the amended order, each hospital would be assessed 6% of the net patient revenue it earns from inpatient care and, separately, 6% of its net patient revenue from outpatient care. Both numbers would come from the hospital's most recent Medicare Cost Report using the Medicare Upper Payment Limit method, and another acceptable data source would be used for any hospital without a cost report.
A companion rule written for payments starting Oct. 1, 2026, spells out the same split.
The order also opens a new bank account for the fund, which the county says the Texas Health and Human Services Commission requested. The money can be spent only on the uses listed in Section 292E.103(b) of the state code, the order says.
Who pays what
The county's fiscal 2027 rate analysis lists the assessment hospital by hospital:
- Medical City Denton: about $27.7 million a year, or $6.9 million a quarter, the largest in the county
- Texas Health Denton: about $17.8 million
- The Heart Hospital Baylor Denton: about $7.0 million
- Rehabilitation Institute of Denton: about $1.5 million
- UBH Denton Hospital: about $1.3 million
