Sen. Olympia Snowe said Thursday she will use her new position as chair of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on health to improve Medicare reimbursement to Maine’s hospitals.

Snowe said Maine is 46th in the nation in the amount of money Medicare reimburses its doctors. Until recently, Maine had the dubious distinction of being 50th. Snowe said she thinks the low funding reflects a bias in favor of urban hospitals that should change.

“Medicare doesn’t take into account some of the circumstances in rural health care,” she said during a tour of Eastern Maine Medical Center. The reimbursement formulas also don’t reflect changes in the way hospitals operate, she said.

“I don’t think there’s an arena that has changed so rapidly,” Snowe said. “Medicare has failed to keep pace with that revolutionary change.”

Hospitals like EMMC increasingly are treating patients more quickly. Many surgeries that once required days in the hospital are now done during the day with the patient leaving by day’s end.

The reduction comes from improved surgical techniques and more effective prescription drugs, medical experts say.

Snowe said she was looking to see the improvements firsthand. Before visiting EMMC she toured Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield. A few weeks ago she visited Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford.

The goal, she said, is to expand her understanding of the changing health care system as she begins work as chair of the subcommittee.

As she toured EMMC, Snowe was treated to complaints by doctors and hospital administrators about insufficient Medicare reimbursement.

At the helicopter pad on top of EMMC’s new outpatient surgery center, Snowe was told that the medical helicopter service based there loses significant money every time it carries a Medicare patient.

Thomas Judge, executive director of LifeFlight, said every Medicare patient transported is reimbursed about $4,000 less than a Medicaid beneficiary. Medicare is a federal program for the elderly. Medicaid is a federal and state program for lower-income people.

Although other states have similar problems, “this is probably at the extreme,” Judge said.

Snowe said the last time she visited EMMC, helicopter service was just a topic of conversation. Now that it’s real she said it’s “a tremendous addition for the community.”

Judge said LifeFlight carries more than 500 patients per year. Of the group, he calculates that about four of 10 patients LifeFlight serves are “unexpected survivors.”

Judge said one compelling example was of a youngster in Greenville who severed a major artery when a firecracker attached to a carbon dioxide canister exploded.

Luckily, adults were nearby to try to stop the profuse bleeding immediately and call for help, Judge said. When the helicopter arrived, it whisked the boy away and “our crew was literally squeezing blood into this kid.”

Judge said the amount of blood transfused into the boy would have by itself exceeded the local hospital’s supply. Without the help and helicopter, “this kid had a 100 percent chance of being dead,” Judge said. His survival made him an unexpected survivor.

After hearing this story together with reimbursement complaints, Snowe said reimbursement formulas must be fixed.

“We ought to find out what we can do to work it out, to make it right,” Snowe said.

As she toured the new outpatient surgery center, emergency room and cancer center at EMMC, Snowe continually engaged patients in conversation.

In the cancer center where about 250 people are treated daily, Snowe talked at length with several patients. She spent more than 10 minutes talking with a patient who had insurance problems.

After these discussions, she told those touring the hospital with her that prescription drug costs were on the minds of several of the patients. One spent $7,000 a year and the other $14,000 a year on prescriptions because of inadequate insurance.

Snowe, who has introduced prescription drug legislation, said she’s looking at several prescription drug options now.

“I’d just hate to see this year go by and not have a prescription drug benefit,” she said.