Lawmakers introduce bills to save Glenn County Hospital

from Ana B. IbarraCalMatters

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Four weeks after Glenn County lost its only hospital, two California lawmakers in Congress have revived hopes for its return — though the path to reopening remains uncertain.

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and Republican Doug LaMalfa have introduced two separate bills aimed at helping Glenn Medical Center, a 25-bed hospital in rural Willows. Either proposal would restore the hospital’s “critical access” status, a designation that brings increased Medicare reimbursement and regulatory flexibilities that help small hospitals.

Last spring, American Medical Care Centers and Medical Services notified Glenn Medical that it was no longer eligible for critical access because it did not meet a key distance rule requiring it to be at least 35 miles from the next closest hospital. The nearest hospital, Colusa Medical Center, is 32 miles away, the hospital agency said in a letter. Glenn Medical Center unsuccessfully appealed the decisionnoting that the distance between the two hospitals has not changed in decades.

Without the revenue that comes from the critical access status, operations would be unsustainable, hospital management previously told CalMatters. After administrators told staff the hospital would have to close, workers began leaving for other jobs. The hospital closed on Sept. 30, earlier than administrators originally expected.

However, a change in federal policy to reinstate the hospital’s critical access status will not allow Glenn Medical to reopen immediately. Even if Congress approves Schiff’s or LaMalfa’s bill, the hospital is still left with another problem: Reopening a shuttered facility requires cash, and lots of it.

“Reinstating the critical access designation, which is my understanding of what the bill would do, at least makes (reopening) a possibility,” said Matthew Beeler, a spokesman for American Advanced Management, the for-profit company that owns Glenn Medical Center and several other rural hospitals in California.

But, he said, “the reality is that once the employees have left, you’re starting from scratch. We need to see that successful first and then work with the elected to help identify potential funding sources,” he said.

Beehler didn’t have an exact figure, but reopening Glenn Medical, he said, would cost tens of millions of dollars.

Lawmakers draw up rescue plans

Schiff teamed up with Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi to introduced legislation it would amend the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, which helps fund critical access hospitals. Their bill would allow hospitals designated as critical access as of Jan. 1, 2024 — including Glenn Medical Center — to retain that status.

“The resulting closing of this hospital or others like it is devastating and potentially deadly for California families,” Schiff said in a statement announcing his legislation.

A day later, Rep. LaMalfa of Richvale proposed a different solution with Rural Hospital Equity Actwhich would allow hospitals that are the only urgent care providers in their county and that had active critical access at the end of 2024 to continue to be eligible for the program.

In his announcement of the bill, LaMalfa said US Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, “initially indicated that Glenn Medical’s status would be reinstated, but CMS later declined to do so without legislation.”

CMS, LaMalfa says, “admits it made a mistake more than 20 years ago when the hospital was first designated, but the people of Glenn County are the ones being punished for it.”

“This is unacceptable,” LaMalfa added.

New costs for opening a hospital

Now 28,000 Glenn County residents travel farther for emergency care. The hospital has directed patients on its Facebook page to the next three closest facilities: Colusa Medical Center, a 35-minute drive away; Enloe Medical Center in Chico, about 45 minutes away; and St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff, about a 45-minute drive up Interstate 5.

Glenn County has two ambulances, and the longer trips to hospitals leave them less time to respond to residents in need.
American Advanced Management’s Beehler said one advantage for Glenn Medical Center is that when it closes its doors, it’s only suspending its state license, not terminating it. Reinstating a hospital license can be an expensive and lengthy process.

American Advanced Management is the same company that reopened Madera Community Hospital earlier this year. This was done with the help of a $57 million loan from the state. Beehler said part of the reason hospitals need such a large infusion of cash to restart is that it can be months before a facility receives reimbursement from insurers and public payers.

And it needs that money to pay back and pay doctors, nurses and other hospital workers, Beehler said, some of whom may have taken other opportunities by now.

Legislation is a first step, Beehler said. The next challenge is finding a “funding source to target reopening efforts.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a cost they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.