By building a new hospital, Allen County took an important step in securing a strong medical presence.
The new facility is an attractive place for both patients and employees. When you’re sick, it’s important to feel you are getting the best of care and certainly being in a state-of-the-art facility helps bolster that feeling.
That said, a new facility does not guarantee success, especially in rural areas where people suffer what is called “small-town syndrome,” as described in an article appearing in Sunday’s Kansas City Star about the closure of Mercy Hospital in Independence.
Small-town syndrome is a disease whose main symptom is the feeling that services, including health care, are better in bigger cities. So instead of using the local hospital for even standard procedures such as a colonoscopy or mammogram, locals travel to metropolitan hospitals.
In the case of Independence, 49 percent of its population went elsewhere for medical care; most traveled 40 miles south to Bartlesville.
The outcome, of course, was a loss of vital revenue for the Independence hospital.
Other things contributed to its closure, including the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid, the federal program that helps a state take care of its poor and disabled.
Had Kansas expanded Medicaid, it would have boosted Independence’s bottom line by $1.7 million annually. Instead, the hospital had to absorb into its budget the care of more people who could not pay their hospital bills.
A hospital benefits most from patients who have private health insurance, usually from their places of employment, because their insurance pays more for costs incurred than those who rely on Medicare or Medicaid.
In Independence, about 51 percent of its patients have private insurance, compared to the state average of 65 percent.
The same ratio applies to Allen County and, as with Independence, is exacerbated when that segment with private insurance goes out of town for its care.
With a population of 9,400, Independence is almost twice the size of Iola, and seemingly in a more secure position to weather the ups and downs of today’s rural communities.
ACRH’s only buffer is that it is designated as a critical access hospital, which guarantees a higher reimbursement rate compared to hospitals without. That said, the federal government’s sequestration program of 2014 has cut the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid. Those lower rates are likely to continue with a Congress that can’t agree to fund a budget.
In the five years, 56 rural hospitals have closed across the United States.
When an area loses its hospital, a community has to try extra hard that a domino effect does not ensue. Without a hospital it is not only more difficult to recruit health care professionals, but also industries.
We all have a role in keeping Allen County Regional Hospital healthy. It starts by going there when we’re sick.
— Susan Lynn
New hospital not a guarantee for success
