Priority: Address capacity challenges by investing in children’s healthcare infrastructure – increasing the number of pediatric inpatient beds, expanding outpatient pediatric specialty services, and updating technology to ensure the delivery of efficient and state-of-the-art care.
Background: Population growth, the loss of community hospital-based pediatric inpatient beds, and the increasing medical complexity of many children we serve have together created a need for expanded capacity. Investment is needed to ensure that all children in South Carolina can receive needed care within the state – care that is provided as close to home as possible. We will continue to work collaboratively to address the needs of children with complex or chronic illness, creating statewide systems of care and utilizing telehealth as appropriate.
Perinatal regionalization is an evidence-based, statewide approach to providing timely, risk-appropriate care to mothers and infants. It organizes hospitals into designated levels of care with the overall intent of matching patient needs to the appropriate level of care. South Carolina’s system of perinatal regionalization has been in place for decades. The SC Department of Public Health (SC DPH) designates perinatal regions, each of which is anchored by regional perinatal center.
Approximately 60% of children in South Carolina are covered by the Medicaid program, making it the primary payor for children’s healthcare across the state. Additionally, children make up 60% of the SC Medicaid program enrollment. With the passage of HR 1 on July 4, 2025, federal legislation commonly referred to as “The Big Beautiful
Bill”, close to $1 trillion in federal funding cuts to the Medicaid program were enacted. The biggest impact in South Carolina will be a phasing down of the state’s directed payment programs, cuts that are estimated by the state Medicaid program to total around $ 2 billion per year. These cuts begin phasing in during 2028, and children will be disproportionately impacted . The SC Children’s Hospital Collaborative will be working closely with the SC Hospital Association, the SC Department of Health and Human Services, the Children’s Hospital Association, the legislature, and other stakeholders to mitigate the funding cuts and preserve access to care for our children.