LAKEPORT — Sutter Lakeside Hospital (SLH) will hold a community forum tomorrow to discuss the organization”s decision to seek critical-access hospital (CAH) designation, which requires the hospital downsize its inpatient bed capacity from 69 to 25. Sutter Lakeside CEO Kelly Mather will lead a discussion to address how it will impact the community.
Sutter Lakeside Hospital spokesman Mitch Proaps said in a Tuesday press release the designation will help the hospital maintain important services, retain staff and physicians and continue its plans for growth.
The hospital has been operating at critical-access capacity since last Friday, Proaps said, and CAH designation will be approved after the hospital passes an unannounced survey by the Joint Commission, a healthcare regulatory agency. “We don”t know when that will be. It could be this month or next. We”re ready,” Proaps said.
The status will allow the hospital to receive higher Medicare reimbursements. The hospital needs the status because currently, only one out of five Medicare patients” bills are paid in full. As a result, SLH would lose about $5 million in 2008 without critical-access status, Mather said. Critical-access status would increase Medicare payments so that four out of five of those patients” bills would be paid in full.
Opponents to the idea say the new status would impact the county”s access to health care, causing more transfers to hospitals outside the county and between Sutter Lakeside and the county”s only other hospital, Redbud Community Hospital, which is already critical-access and limited to 25 beds.
Another concern, brought up by Supervisor Anthony Farrington at a Board of Supervisors forum held last month, is that an increased transfer rate would detrimentally impact area fire departments. About four years ago fire departments became the primary provider of ambulatory services in the county.
More than 100 community members attended the Board of Supervisors forum, a discussion between Mather, supervisors and citizens that lasted more than three hours. About half of the dozen or so citizens who spoke were in favor of critical-access. Many said a third-party community health survey would be beneficial. The Board of Supervisors agreed such a study would be useful, and Mather said the hospital would be willing to pay for half its cost.
In other Sutter Health news, SLH”s corporate parent announced Wednesday Sutter Medical Center in Santa Rosa will remain open after more than a year of being slated for closure. The announcement that it intended to end services in Sonoma County came in January 2007. Sutter representatives said the decision not to close came because of failed negotiations about how to transfer patient services to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.
Some opponents to SLH”s closure, including the hospital worker union United Healthcare Workers, said the proposed closure of Sutter Medical Center in Santa Rosa was a “red flag” and questioned Sutter”s commitment to serving rural North Bay communities.
Sutter”s original decision to leave Sonoma County arose after a disclosure that it had a $6.8 million loss in 2005 following a $4.5 million loss the year before. SLH posted a loss of just over $1 million in 2007. “The significant change?the Fed”s no longer providing cost-based reimbursement?in Medicare reimbursement occurred at some point in ”06,” Proaps said.
The Thursday forum from 6 to 7 p.m. will be held at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, 3500 Hill Road East in Lakeport.
Seating is limited and those interested in attending should consider arriving early, Proaps said.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
