HOULTON – Congressman John E. Baldacci brought a Christmas present of sorts to officials at Houlton Regional Hospital on Monday.

He announced that the hospital, and others like it across the country, will be reimbursed more for services provided to Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Baldacci said an additional $31 billion was added Friday to the original Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to cover the cost of services, that for many hospitals were losing money.

“We were able to get a better deal,” Baldacci told about 20 members of the hospital’s board of trustees and medical staff. “A better rate is important for a viable hospital.”

Hospitals in Maine, including small rural hospitals like Houlton’s that serve a wide geographic area, are currently reimbursed only 80 cents for every dollar they spend on Medicare patients. It is the lowest rate in the country.

At Houlton Regional Hospital, 55 percent of the patients seen are Medicare recipients, while another 25 percent get Medicare, according to Thomas Moakler, the hospital’s chief executive officer.

The hospital provides service to people in more than 20 communities in three counties.

“Hospitals all across the country got pretty good news,” he said Monday of Baldacci’s announcement.

The Congressman said the total funding for reimbursement and other aligned programs has gone from $16 billion last year to $31 billion, for what he described as a “market basket” of services.

In addition to increased reimbursement rates for hospitals, Baldacci said the legislation also includes; increased payments for telehealth programs; an increase of 10 percent in rural home-health care rates for 2 years; increased payments for medical-nutrition therapy for such conditions as diabetes and renal disease; and increases in the per-mile reimbursement for ambulances for trips in the 17- to 50-mile range.

Moakler said while the exact dollar benefit to HRH was not yet known, it will amount to at least several hundred thousand dollars a year.

That’s good news for the hospital, which in 1997 saw revenues fall short by more than $335,000. That figure jumped to about $560,000 in 1999.

Continued losses, Moakler said, would leave the hospital with few options: increase rates, which would place the burden on the 20 percent of the people who have their own insurance; or continue to operate at a loss and cut services.

“Ultimately, what it leads to is a change in services that we can’t afford,” he said. “That’s the real fear of any rural hospital.”

Baldacci said last week’s changes to the Balanced Budget Act will mean that community hospitals, which are the sole source of critical care medical service in a region, will be better able to provide increased opportunities for people to have access to health care, rather than have to worry about cutting services.

“As health care becomes a more and more important issue, it’s going to become more important that our hospitals are strong,” he said.