(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics will increase rates for its services by six-percent in the coming budget year. The Board of Regents approved the new rates Thursday. U-I-H-C officials say the increase is especially needed now because of losses the health system suffered during the pandemic. Chief Financial Officer Bradley Haws says shutting down surgeries alone was extremely expensive. “My forecast of a million-and-a-half (dollars) a day was low. That was just the surgeries going away,” Haws says. “So when we forecasted a new number with declining admissions, the number came closer to two-and-a-half-million dollars per day.”

Besides the canceled surgeries and falling admissions, Haws says the added costs of handling COVID-19 dealt a blow to the state’s largest hospital. He says raising rates will help recoup some of those losses. “That impact of a rate increase brings in about $12-almost-13 million of increased revenue,” Haws says. “And so we view that as a vital way to offset, as we talked about, the CARES money and to continue our operation.”

Haws says an infusion of millions of dollars from the federal government was key to stabilizing the facility’s finances over the past year.

(reporting by Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio)