Hospitals Faced Tough Challenge to Stay Open
Hospitals can close for any number of reasons. Often, the cause will be a struggling financial situation which may be due to poor management, too many patient bankruptcies, lawsuits or low reimbursement rates from insurance companies. Additionally, government bodies will often step in and close down a state or county funded hospital for various reasons, such as a preference for privately owned hospitals, or the advantages of moving existing health care services to newer and more modern locations.
Due to the above reasons, many hospitals found it difficult to keep their doors open to provide quality health care to patients. Below is a list of hospitals that closed during 2014 in alphabetical order. Within each paragraph, a brief description of the closed hospital is provided, as well details surrounding the respective hospital’s closure.
1) Cleveland Regional Medical Center
Following several years of trying to maintain financial stability, Cleveland (Texas) Regional Medical Center closed on August 28, 2014. Residents of the hub city of 80,0000 read papers posted on the hospital’s doors that they’d have to now seek emergency services 24 miles away in Kingwood. Cleveland Regional has commented that the hospital closed due to necessary repairs, and that they are working to ensure that other health services become available to the community. One hospital employee told the Cleveland Advocate that the hospital was being shut down due to failing certain inspections. Cleveland Regional Medical Center is owned by RKM management. The hospital had a hard time paying employees and vendors in the previous four years.
2) Good Shepherd Medical Center
Due to cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and decreased patient volume, Good Shepherd Medical Center in Linden, Texas closed its doors on April 30, 2014. Good Shepherd Medical Center is owned by Good Shepherd Health System based out of Longview, Texas, a large network of hospitals and health care facilities. They bought Good Shepherd Medical Center nine years earlier, but the critical access hospital started to generate millions of dollars in operating losses. Estimates are as high as $12 million. The community of Linden also started to choose other facilities as their preffered choice of health care, and at a certain point the daily average number of patrons to the hospital was five. This was well below the amount that Good Shepherd Health Systems felt was acceptable to keep the Medical Center open.
3) Huey P. Long Medical Center
The Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville, Louisiana was closed down on June 30, 2014 by the state legislature. This is one of the last moves in Governor Bobby Jindal’s plan to privatizatize health care facilities in the state of Louisiana. This plan believes in the theory that if private health care providers buy and manage hospitals, patients will get better quality healthcare. Additionally, it will save the state government hundreds of millions of dollars in funding costs. People who were against the closure, claimed that the state slowly started to cut away from the funding of Huey P. Long Medical Center, which ultimately led to it shutting down. They argued that this move is not best for the patients in the least, but only beneficial for the state government’s wallet.
4) Lake Whitney Medical Center
After months of financial struggles, and failed takeovers, Lake Whitney Medical Center decided to close its doors on April 3, 2014. The last 30 workers of the Texas hospital were told to go home after the Whitney Hospital Authority voted to shut health care facility down. The small hospital, located 75 miles south of Dallas, was close to ending operations last July when its president and owner Dr. Tariq Mahmood was charged with fraud involving medical billing. Lake Whitney Medical Center is one of several hospitals owned by Mahmood in the region. In august, Frontier Hospitals leased the hospital for 30 days in an attempt to save the financially plagued health care center. After the lease ended, Frontier decided against renewing the lease. Other companies as well backed out of potential deals with Lake Whitney.
5) Lower Oconee Community Hospital
Lower Oconee Community Hospital in Glenwood, Georgia, closed its doors on June 23, 2014. The hospital had closed in mid-February as well, and Charlton Healthcare Corporation a private healthcare company owned by Norman King, the current CEO at Lower Oconee, bought the struggling 25 bed health care facility. He had it reopened by the beginning of March. At that point there were approximately 100 employees working for the hospital and many jobs were cut after the takeover. Several of the remaining employees of the hospital are still owed months of salary. The small town of Glenwood is found within a county that only owns one ambulance, and whose closest hospital is 25 miles away, after Lower Oconee’s closure. Lower Oconee Community Hospital is one of many rural hospitals that are found in the North Georgia Region. Several of these smaller hospitals have had to close in the past few years, due mostly to financial issues.
6) Vidant Pungo Hospital
After failing to solve many years of financial issues, Vidant Pungo Hospital in Belhaven, N.C. closed on July 1, 2014. The 65 health care facility was taken over by Vidant Health three years before it closed. Vidant announced it would open a 24/7 clinic in its place. Town officials claimed that there was mediation between the hospital and town representatives, with an offer for the 50 bed hospital to be transferred to the town, and that Vidant Pungo Hospital never allowed the town to take it over before it shut its doors. In response, Vidant said that the town was contacted to arrange a take over, but never responded. Vidant understood that to mean that the Town of Belhaven had no plans to assume operation of the hospital. The town of Belhaven has claimed that Vidant Pungo has over $550 million in the bank.