Rural Healthcare Providers Face
New Challenges and Healthcare Trends

As our nation has seen various changes in healthcare trends, methods and reimbursements, many community hospitals are facing financial and organizational challenges. In fact, 83 rural hospitals have closed down in the past 8 years, according to the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. A 2015 study by iVantage Analytics in partnership with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) stated that 673 rural hospitals (one out of three) are in financial duress.

Those 673 rural care facilities are said to provide care to about 11.7 million people, employ 237,000 workers and account for $277 billion in economic activity. (NRHA)

It has become evident in our community that Western Missouri Medical Center (WMMC) has been no exception to these challenges. We hold ourselves accountable to the patients and communities that we serve and therefore believe that you have the right to understand what we are up against in the current medical field today.

 

Changes in Reimbursement

In recent years, the way that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rewards acute-care hospitals has changed, causing a significant decrease in reimbursements for many rural medical providers.

Last year alone, these changes caused a $2 million decrease in reimbursement from Medicare.

 

Government Mandates

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we were required to adopt and demonstrate “meaningful use” of electronic medical records (EMR) in order to maintain existing Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels.

While the use of an EMR system has provided many benefits such as integrated patient records and a streamlined flow of communication between WMMC providers, EMR came at a significant expense to the medical center. WMMC has invested $5.3 in order to integrate all patient records for all of our primary and specialty clinics to EMR.

 

Growth of Competition and Perception of “Big City Care”

WMMC has not been immune to the looming growth of competition concerning investor-owned, for-profit organizations that provide health services for business instead of for the community. The perception of “big city care” versus “community care” has been an issue for small community hospitals like WMMC, and the growth of competition has resulted in a decline of patient volume for our local medical center.

But did you know that WMMC has long partnered with Lee’s Summit and Kansas City care providers, including Saint Luke’s, for a variety of services? This means that the same exact healthcare providers that local community members would see at Saint Luke’s for specialty services such as cardiology and cancer care are providing care here at WMMC. That’s right – WMMC has brought that “big city care” right to our community, ensuring that you receive expert care for those specialty services without the drive.

 

Outpatient Boom

In recent years, there has been an outpatient boom—procedures and testing that was once classified as inpatient, is now treated as outpatient. This alone creates a decrease in revenue, but benefits the patients in being able to have reduced costs. WMMC has met the challenge by recruiting physicians who specialize in minimally invasive procedures and investing in the technology necessary to do so.

But with this boom, the nation has also seen an increase in outpatient treatment facilities (such as privately owned outpatient diagnostic imaging centers). These facilities naturally are able to have lesser costs. Why? Because they do not have the overhead costs to stay open 24/7 as your local hospital does. They are not open for late night emergencies such as a child’s broken arm at a weekend game or a grandmother’s overnight stroke. Therefore, they do not have the operational costs associated with the round of clock availability that community medical centers do.

 

Physician Recruitment Challenges

Many community members ask why we “bought up all the practices in town.” Independent rural practices often have physician staffing challenges. Like many other fields, physicians tend to be drawn to large urban areas rather than smaller, rural communities.

A 2015 study by Merritt Hawkins (2015 Survey of Final-Year Medical Residents) showed that final-year medical residents preferred larger, urban communities rather than smaller ones.

By our local primary care providers and WMMC joining together, we were able to collaboratively create a medical community that has more resources and draw for young physicians, ensuring that our community has locally based care providers for years to come.

Thinking shortsightedly, we have a variety of primary care providers locally for our community to choose from. But their dedication to our community extends past the next ten years. Local providers and WMMC leadership are looking into the next 25 years of health in our community and know that in order to establish a healthier tomorrow, we must recruit the next generation of health providers today.

The joining and collaboration of our medical community also provided the opportunity of moving towards an integrated community care model. This model was identified by WMMC leadership as a way of ensuring that all area medical care providers were providing a high standard of care, following standardized care plans, working towards preventative medicine and ensuring the collaborative treatment of patients with chronic diseases.

 

Remaining a Long-Standing Community Health Partner

In the past few months, WMMC leadership has been forced to make tough decisions in order to position the medical center for a positive future. These decisions were not made lightly but were necessary to reduce operating costs.

We believe that this is the end of drastic changes and will avoid future employee workforce reduction at all costs. By making the operation expense cuts that we did, we feel as though we are on a path to financial success.

WMMC is dedicated to ensuring that we are a long-standing community health partner for Johnson County and the surrounding areas. We are dedicated to employing local residents, providing care for local residents and improving the overall health of area businesses in order to reduce insurance costs in our area.

How do we plan to do this?

  • Continuing to move towards an integrated community care model by focusing on preventative medicine and the standardized, quality treatment
  • Focusing on the improvement of patient billing
  • Staying on top of current healthcare trends

We know that recent events have caused shock throughout our community. But we must ask for your continued support as we move forward together. By choosing local health providers, you are enabling our medical community to continue providing care, to continue improving, to stay on top of government requirements and to recruit medical providers for years to come.