The imminent closing of Mercy Hospital in Fort Scott brings a sobering reminder of the challenges facing hospitals in southeast Kansas.
?It?s scary. It?s really heartbreaking for their employees and their community,? Patti Boyd, Allen County Regional Hospital Board of Trustees president, said. ?I don?t want that to happen to our hospital.?
Officials on Monday announced Mercy Hospital will close at the end of the year. The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas (CHC/SEK) will take over some of the clinics, services and pharmacy operations.
The challenges facing Mercy differ in some important ways from ACRH. Mercy was not a critical access hospital, which meant it received less reimbursements from government-funded programs like Medicaid and Medicare. In 1997, the federal government labeled hospitals with 25 or fewer beds as ?critical access hospitals? to boost the finances of rural hospitals. Critical access hospitals like ACRH receive reimbursements based on actual costs instead of a variable formula.
But, like other hospitals in southeast Kansas, Mercy?s challenges echo a familiar refrain: decreased reimbursements from private insurance and government-funded sources; increasing costs for things like drugs, equipment and supplies; declining patient numbers in communities with a decreasing and aging population; and a patient base with some of the highest rates of poverty and poor health in the state.
Overcoming those challenges takes commitment at every level, from patients to providers to legislators, Boyd and other area health officials said.
?It?s a constant challenge to be responsive to the changes in health care. There?s not a lot of margin for error,? Boyd said.
And while not everyone agrees on the most effective solutions, a common theme is the state?s failure to expand Medicaid.
Medicaid expansion
Allen County could benefit from about $1 million more revenue each year if Kansas expanded Medicaid, Tony Thompson, ACRH CEO, said. That figure represents the amount of money lost in uncompensated care, from patients who cannot afford private insurance but earn too much income to qualify for Medicaid.
Since the opportunity first arose to expand Medicaid in 2014, Kansas has forfeited about $2.8 billion in federal funds, according to the Kansas Hospital Association (KHA). Mercy Hospital could have received about $2.7 annually from a Medicaid expansion, officials say.
?If there were a million dollars that came back to Allen County ? if there were $2.8 billion that came back to Kansas ? you turn that over six times in economic benefit. That?s a lot of positive impact on the economy,? Thompson said.
State legislators in 2017 passed a bill that would have expanded KanCare, the state?s Medicaid program that covers low-income children, the disabled, the elderly and very low-income adults with children. Then-Governor Sam Brown-back vetoed the bill. Supporters didn?t have enough votes to override the veto.
It?s scary. It?s really heartbreaking for their employees and their community. I don?t want that to happen to our hospital.
? Patti Boyd, Allen County Regional Hospital Board of Directors
The expansion issue could hinge on November?s election result. Candidates for governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, and Greg Orman, an independent, support expansion. Republican Kris Kobach opposes it.
