By Ana B. Ibarra for CalMatters
Four weeks after Glenn County lost its only hospital, two California lawmakers in Congress have revived hopes for its return — though the road to reopening remains uncertain.
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa introduced two separate bills that aim to help Glenn Medical Center, a 25-bed hospital in the rural town of Willows. Each proposal would restore the hospital’s “critical access” status, a designation that brings increased Medicare reimbursement and regulatory flexibilities that help small hospitals.
This past spring, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified Glenn Medical that it was no longer eligible for the critical access title because it didn’t meet a key distance rule that requires it to be at least 35 miles from the next closest hospital. The nearest hospital, Colusa Medical Center, is 32 miles away, the agency told the hospital in a letter. Glenn Medical Center unsuccessfully appealed the decision, noting that the distance between the two hospitals has not changed in decades.
Without the revenue that comes from having critical access status, operations would be unsustainable, hospital management previously told CalMatters. Once administrators told staff that the hospital would have to close, workers started to leave for other jobs. The hospital ceased operations on Sept. 30, earlier than administrators first anticipated.
Changing federal policy to restore the hospital’s critical access status, however, would not enable Glenn Medical to reopen immediately. Even if Congress approves Schiff’s or LaMalfa’s bill, the hospital is still left with another problem: reopening a closed facility requires cash, and lots of it.
“Having the critical access designation reinstated, which is my understanding of what the bill would do, that at least makes [reopening] a possibility,” said Matthew Beehler, a spokesperson for American Advanced Management, the for-profit company that owns Glenn Medical Center and several other rural hospitals in California.
But, he said, “the reality is once the employees have left, you’re starting from scratch. We need to see this be successful first and then work with electeds to help identify potential funding sources,” he said.
Beehler did not have an exact figure, but reopening Glenn Medical, he said, would cost in the tens of millions of dollars.
Lawmakers craft rescue plans
Schiff teamed up with Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi to introduce legislation that would amend the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, which helps fund critical access hospitals. Their bill would allow hospitals designated critical access as of Jan. 1, 2024 – including Glenn Medical Center – to keep that status.
“The resulting closure of this hospital or others like it, is devastating and potentially deadly for California families,” Schiff said in a statement announcing his legislation.
A day later, Rep. LaMalfa of Richvale proposed a different solution with the Rural Hospital Fairness Act, which would allow hospitals that are the only emergency providers in their county and that had an active critical access title at the end of 2024 to continue being eligible for the program.
In his bill announcement, LaMalfa said U.S. Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services, “initially indicated that Glenn Medical’s status would be restored, but CMS later refused to do so without legislation.”
CMS, says LaMalfa, “admits it made a mistake over 20 years ago when the hospital was first designated, but it’s the people of Glenn County who are being punished for it.”
“That’s unacceptable,” LaMalfa added.
New costs to open a hospital
Glenn County’s 28,000 residents now are traveling farther for emergency care. The hospital, on its Facebook page, has redirected patients to the three next closest facilities: Colusa Medical Center, a 35-minute drive; Enloe Medical Center in Chico, about 45-minutes away; and St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff, about a 45-minute drive up Interstate 5.
Glenn County has two ambulances, and the longer drives to hospitals leaves them less time to respond to residents in need.
Beehler at American Advanced Management said one advantage for Glenn Medical Center is that when it closed its doors, it only suspended its state license and did not terminate it. Reinstating a hospital license can be a costly and lengthy process.
American Advanced Management is the same company that reopened Madera Community Hospital earlier this year. It did so with the help of a $57 million loan from the state. Beehler said that part of the reason hospitals need such a big infusion of cash to restart is because it can be months before a facility receives reimbursement from insurers and public payers.
And it needs that money to bring back and pay physicians, nurses and other hospital workers, Beehler said, some of whom by now may have taken other opportunities.
Be the first to comment