Rooks County Health Center News
Critical Access Hospital — What Does this Mean for our Hospital?
We often hear the term Critical Access Hospital, but what does this mean for Rooks County Health Center. RCH was designated a Critical Access Hospital in 1997, when Congress created the program to help small rural hospitals remain open and viable. Critical Access Hospital status allows Medicare to pay the allowable costs for services or cost-based reimbursement.
“With critical access status, Medicare is paying Critical Access Hospitals what it actually costs to provide care,” states Julie Price, Chief Executive Officer of Rooks County Health Center. “Under the old rules, Medicare was paying less than the cost of care, and many small hospitals were closing their doors.”
With this being the case, it is amazing to realize that our ability to build a new state-of-the art facility will allow Rooks County Health Center the capability to recoup some of our costs of this incredible building project. With over 60 percent of our patient base being Medicare patients, we can recover approximately 67 percent of the costs of depreciation on the equipment and building for the new facility from Medicare. This confirmation came from John Helms, our accountant with Wendling, Noe, Nelson and Johnson, LLC.
When this hospital and over 1,278 other rural hospitals in the United States obtained critical access status, it was a lifeline in a stormy sea. Congress realized that rural hospitals needed a safety net and allowed rural hospitals to stay open, providing jobs and health care to small communities.
As a Critical Access Hospital, Rooks County Health Center is situated to do far more than we ever could as an outpatient center. There are times such as the evening many of the staff at Rooks County Health Center worked overtime. A patient came in on the ambulance with a possible heart attack, another ambulance brought in a couple who had been in an automobile accident, and a man who had stepped on a nail also came to the emergency room. Fortunately, the incidents occurred at shift change so double the staff was available. There was also a woman in labor and four other inpatients requiring attention too. Everyone came together as a team to get the job done.
Every rural hospital and clinic has a story about “that time we were stretched to the limit.” Usually they are remembered with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes with a job well done and extraordinary teamwork. We hold disaster drills, update policies and procedures; we check supply cabinets (and check them twice). However we can never predict what extreme challenge awaits. We learn from each other, but we know the next situation will be different; a multi car pile up in a heavy dust storm, an injured employee from the local home manufacturing plant, or a football player or basketball who is hurt during a game. All tax us to the limit and strengthen our argument that rural health care is good for the country.
Thank goodness Congress and people in Rooks County understand and support the idea of access being critical in rural areas.