Support floods in for hospital
North Valley Hospital was overwhelmed with community support Tuesday after announcing a proposed Medicare/Medicaid ruling threatens its new building project.
Carol Blake, executive director of the hospital foundation, said the hospital received many calls from citizens as well as businesses.
"It's really positive," she said.
Although the staff of Sen. Max Baucus continues to work on the problem, Blake said no breakthroughs occurred Monday on getting an answer about how the building project may impact North Valley's status as a critical access hospital.
More than a million dollars in annual Medicare/Medicaid payments depend on North Valley Hospital maintaining the critical-access certification granted under a waiver program that expires in January.
Approval of North Valley's $26 million construction loan guaranteed by HUD also hinges on North Valley receiving written assurance that it will continue as a critical access hospital.
The hospital learned only last week that officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told HUD authorities that a proposed ruling "could impact" North Valley Hospital. HUD was in the final stages of approving the loan.
The ruling, expected in two to three weeks, could prohibit North Valley and 599 other state-waived critical access facilities from replacing their hospitals regardless of location of the new facility.
Craig Aasved, North Valley's administrator, said that means a bleak future for North Valley Hospital.
"The outdated structure of the current hospital will not support a remodel," he said.
On Monday, Aasved asked community members to request that Rep. Dennis Rehberg and Sens. Baucus and Conrad Burns help resolve the bureaucratic log jam.
To keep on schedule for a late 2006 completion, the construction project needs to go out for bid on April 15. A delay risks imposing higher interest rates and construction costs on the nonprofit, community hospital.
Blake said North Valley would continue its community outreach in coming days.
"We're going to have forums to make sure the community understands the problem," Blake said.
Scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, the first forum takes place in the community room of North Valley Hospital. Hospital officials scheduled a second citizen meeting for 7 p.m. Tuesday in the hospital's community center in Columbia Falls.
The hospital will provide sample letters of support and telephone and fax numbers for Montana's congressional delegation. Blake said community groups should call her at 862-2532 to arrange for speakers.
Aasved was scheduled to speak to the Flathead Business and Industry Association on Tuesday.
His presentation details the steps North Valley Hospital has followed since 2003 to secure a replacement for its more than 30-year-old building.
So far, the board has invested $3.2 million in land, legal fees, applications, and feasibility studies. The new site is about a mile south of the existing hospital on 45 acres near the intersection of Montana 40 and U.S. 93.
North Valley needed a state waiver to qualify as a critical provider because neither the new location or the old site meets location requirements specified in federal rules. Under those rules, a rural hospital must be either a 35-mile drive from a hospital (Kalispell Regional Medical Center), or more than 15 miles away in mountainous terrain or on secondary roads.
Baucus wrote the critical access program legislation in 1997 to help rural hospitals survive. Certified facilities receive Medicare/Medicaid payments which more fully cover the actual cost of care for elderly and indigent patients.
Larger hospitals such as Kalispell Regional use their higher volume of private-pay patients to subsidize Medicare and Medicaid patients.
Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com