During a recent appearance on Talkline, West Virginia Hospital Association President and CEO Joe Letnaunchyn predicted more hospital closings were ahead, and he was right.
Just days after that interview, Fairmont Regional Medical Center notified its employees that it’s closing within weeks. The hospital is owned by the same company—California-based Alecto Healthcare—which just a few months ago shut down the Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry, Ohio.
Unfortunately, community hospital closures are becoming increasingly common. The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research reports that 166 rural hospitals in the country have closed since 2005. And the pace is picking up. Nineteen closed last year, the most of any year since 2005.
Fairmont may not be the last in West Virginia. “There are others on the bubble,” Letnaunchyn told me before he knew of Fairmont’s closing. “I keep hearing there is going to be some news coming out of these hospitals.”
The American Hospital Association (AHA) issued a report last year on the challenges facing hospitals in rural communities.
“Some of these challenges—such as low patient volume and a heavy reliance on public payer programs—have persisted for many years,” the report found, “while others—such as increased regulatory burden and shifts from inpatient to outpatient care—are more recent.”
As a result, rural hospitals often must make difficult decisions about which services to provide and whether to fill vacant positions or even layoff workers. When they run out of options, the result is closure.
Operating a hospital in West Virginia is particularly difficult because of a combination of these problems. We are a poor, rural state with an older population, a serious drug problem and a higher percentage of government payers whose reimbursements do not cover the full cost of treatment.
The AHA says “Without resource support (read: higher reimbursements) and targeted policies for rural communities, many hospitals in these areas will not be able to effectively tackle new or existing challenges.”
For Fairmont residents, hospital care and healthcare jobs can be found a half hour north or south on I-79 in either Morgantown or Clarksburg, and it appears West Virginia is going through a painful period of hospital closure and consolidation. However, the shuttering of a hospital is a tragedy for a community.
Hospitals are critical anchors in communities, providing essential healthcare and good jobs. Fairmont Regional Medical Center—formerly known as Fairmont General—has been a cornerstone of Fairmont and Marion County for over a century.
It’s imminent closure marks not only the end of an era, but also yet another graphic example of the challenges facing the healthcare delivery system in West Virginia and all rural America.