Rural Health Clinic moving to Boyd Wellness Center
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By Carmen Ensinger
The Board of Directors at Thomas H. Boyd Memorial Hospital announced that the Rural Health Clinic, which is currently located inside the hospital, will be moving into the Boyd Wellness Center in mid-October.
The announcement was made via social media and there were numerous comments from area residents, mostly against the move.
Ironically, all of those posts have disappeared off of Facebook and are no longer under the initial post.
Some of the reasons cited for being against the move, which is maybe five or six blocks down the road, is the obvious one – you will be mixing sick people with those exercising for their health. Currently, there is only the single entrance in the front.
Secondly is the inconvenience caused for those needing further testing. Currently, if someone is at the clinic and the doctor suspects, for example, a case of pneumonia, all the patient has to do is walk down the hall to the x-ray room.
With the Rural Health Clinic in the Wellness Center, the patient has to leave the clinic and travel down to the hospital for the x-ray or any other kind of diagnostics, such as a blood draw.
While it might not seem that big of a deal to some, for those who are sick and not feeling well, having to leave, get in the car and travel down to the hospital and then possibly back to the Clinic, it could be a big inconvenience.
Several of the comments, before they disappeared, suggested it would make more sense to move Dr. McNear’s offices to the Wellness Center. His offices are located right across from the hospital.
Boyd Hospital Administrator Stace Holland addressed these issues in another post on Facebook.
“I appreciate the comments that have been made on our Facebook page concerning moving the Rural Health Clinic to the Wellness Center building,” Holland said. “However, Facebook isn’t a good platform to have informative conversations.”
Yet it was the platform used to make the announcement after the decision had been finalized.
“I understand the Wellness Center was meant to house an exercise area along with outpatient therapy,” Holland said. “I believe this is a good plan, however, our federal guidelines will not allow a therapy department to be more than 250 yards away from the hospital and maintain the same reimbursement.”
In other words, the move is purely a financial one.
“By relocating the therapy department to the Wellness Center, the hospital would lose about $250,000 in payments for the same amount of patient care,” Holland said. “Thomas H. Boyd Memorial Hospital is typical of most rural hospitals and we experience a financial challenge each year.
“I could not support continuing with a plan that would place the future of the hospital in financial jeopardy. The only program that could be placed in the vacant at the Wellness Center and continue with the same reimbursement would be a Rural Health Clinic.”
What is more, by relocating the Rural Health Clinic in the Wellness Center, the hospital will be reimbursed 50 percent of the cost of the utilities. Currently, they are responsible for 100 percent.
“Housing the Rural Health Clinic in the building will increase the payment the hospital receives through a cost-based reimbursement program that allows the overhead expenses of the building to be paid by Medicare,” Holland said. “Merging the two programs allows for the hospital to maintain an exercise center for many future years. Enhancing these two programs will allow the hospital to expand the therapy department inside the hospital.
