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Iberia Medical Center presents $136 million budget to Iberia Parish Council, warns of Medicaid pressure
Summary
Iberia Medical Center CEO Dionne Biotor presented a $136 million operating budget for fiscal 2026, highlighting planned investments in outpatient services, a new cath lab and faster lab diagnostics while warning of Medicaid reimbursement shifts that could cut payments in later years.
Iberia Medical Center on Wednesday told the Iberia Parish Council it expects roughly $136,000,000 in revenue for fiscal 2026 and is proposing investments in outpatient and specialty care while budgeting a modest surplus.
"We anticipate revenue next year to be a 100 and almost a 136,000,000," Dionne Biotor, identified in the meeting packet as CEO of Iberia Medical Center, said as she walked the council through the hospital service district's annual operating budget. Biotor said operating expenses are projected to increase about $4 million and that the budget includes merit pay increases for staff.
The budget, which the district presented for council acceptance, budgets a roughly $1.5 million net surplus and anticipates about 127 emergency‑department visits per day across its two campuses. Biotor said the hospital will continue expanding outpatient services — including cancer infusion capacity and new radiology equipment — and will bring online a cardiac PET package and a new cardiac cath lab.
Biotor described a near‑term lab equipment upgrade that can identify pathogens faster than traditional culture methods. "Now they've changed the technology where there can be some laser identification of the yeast real time where in minutes or hours, what used to take 5 to 7 days is now gonna be able to be determined," she said, noting the system should be operational by year‑end and could help other area hospitals.
Council members asked how anticipated state policy changes would affect the budget. Biotor warned that Medicaid reimbursement changes—she said certain physician professional reimbursements will increase but that other Medicaid adjustments may reduce hospital reimbursement beginning in state fiscal 2027 and increasingly in 2028—could have a material effect. "As we move into '27, state fiscal year '27 is when we'll start to see the impact," she said, and added the hospital will work with legislators on possible adjustments.
The council later moved to accept the hospital service district's operating budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2025. Meeting minutes and the resolution record that the council suspended rules as needed and approved the district's budget as presented.
