![]() Critical access hospitals are typically reimbursed by Medicare at a rate of 101%, theoretically allowing a 1% profit. That means the hospital would have to give up almost all of its 200 beds, but it would get more money for services that it provides. Marchand’s Plan A is getting Greenwood Leflore designated as a critical access hospital. “If the hospital closes, there will be a lot of walking dead,” he said. As time has gone on, we’ve been so fortunate to have so many wonderful doctors. “It was just state of the art everything. “I vividly remember how proud we were of that hospital to be built (in its current location in 1952),” Fincher said. ![]() Those doctors that delivered her kids and saved her life are long gone. “It’s just been a lifeline for our family,” Fincher said.īut the neurology department doesn’t exist anymore. ![]() Both of Fincher’s children were born at Greenwood Leflore, and the hospital has saved her life several times, she said, including once when she had a major brain bleed. Pie Fincher and her family are products of Greenwood Leflore Hospital.įincher, who is 89 years old, has only gone to another hospital for treatment one time in her life. “Whenever I go to a social outing, it’s the first thing I get asked,” Lucas said. ![]() Lucas said he hears the same refrain over and over again when he’s out in the community: “How’s the hospital doing?” And for the quarter of patients who have commercial insurance, the hospital often has to fight with the company to get the claim paid, he said.Ī quick scroll on the hospital’s Facebook page shows that Greenwood residents know that closure is a real possibility. So most of the time, that means the hospital is losing money caring for its patients. “It’s the years building up to that when they’re taking financial measures to do everything they can to try and keep the doors open.”īut it’s not financially viable to keep all of those service lines open anymore, according to Greenwood Leflore’s interim CEO Gary Marchand.Ībout 75% of the hospital’s patients are uninsured or on Medicaid or Medicare, which underpay the hospital for its services, Marchand said. “It’s not just when the hospital closes,” he said. Most recently, it shuttered its labor and delivery department and intensive care units.Īt a health affairs committee meeting in February, Nelson Weichold, chief financial officer at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said the worst part about the looming hospital closures is the slow cessation of services.Īn empty hallway of the closed pediatric wing is seen at Greenwood Leflore Hospital in Greenwood, Miss., Tuesday, February 14, 2023. Now, the hospital doesn’t have full coverage of its emergency room for orthopedics or general surgery. Then, it was the urology department and inpatient dialysis. In the past decade, Lucas has watched the hospital close unit after unit, tapering services in an effort to stay open.įirst it was the neurosurgery department. “It’s really sad to walk these empty halls and to see that we only have one part of one floor occupied with patients.” “It wasn’t uncommon to have as close to 200 beds full when I first came here,” he said. When Lucas joined his father at the hospital in 1988, he didn’t experience that level of activity, but it was a far cry from the desolate hospital he serves today. At that time, the hospital was licensed for 250 beds, he said. Back in the hospital’s heyday, Lucas said his father’s patients overflowed into the hallways. John Lucas Jr., practiced at Greenwood Leflore from 1963 until his retirement in 2011. Ryan Kelly, executive director of the Mississippi Rural Health Association, said the situation is dire, and there’s not a straightforward answer. Expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would bring more than $1 billion in federal funding to Mississippi in a year. And there’s little to no chance that state leaders will expand Medicaid this year as 40 other states have done. Hospital administrators are holding their breath, waiting on help from the state, but they could be getting less money this year than they need. There are only three other states with worse prognoses.īut it’s especially devastating in Mississippi, where life expectancy and health outcomes are consistently the worst in the country. Shelton, Mississippi TodayĪ report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform puts a third of Mississippi’s rural hospitals at risk of closure, and half of those at risk of closure within the next few years. Greenwood Leflore Hospital is pictured here, in Greenwood, Miss., Tuesday, February 14, 2023.
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