The three-story building that sits atop a hill appropriately referred to as “hospital hill” on the south side of Dexter Woods Memorial Boulevard in Waynesboro has been a fixture in the community for almost 60 years. Wayne Medical Center is a facility that has served almost every member of the community or their family members at some point in time. The building has seen renovations over the years, including a major project that updated and expanded the entire emergency and imaging departments. But as with any other 60-year-old building, the repairs just keep on coming at a more frequent and costly rate with every year that passes.
We have all heard of the closure of small, rural hospitals like ours over the past few years, including the one in Linden, TN. Obviously, the main reason for the closure of rural hospitals is money. Although hospitals are arguably one of the most important businesses in existence, they are still just that – businesses. In this day and age, folks unfortunately cannot pay for a hospital visit with bartered fresh produce from their gardens, or other various payment methods of old. Even typical healthcare costs exceed what most individuals are able to pay out of pocket, hence the importance of health insurance. Hospitals like Wayne Medical Center are dependent on reimbursement from insurance companies, primarily the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, to keep their doors open.
In recent weeks, the Wayne County Commission Budget Committee has met with officials from Maury Regional regarding the fate of the hospital. Maury Regional is the company that leases Wayne Medical Center from the county and oversees all of its operations. Maury Regional’s lease agreement contract with the county runs out in June 2024, and their corporation has made Wayne County government aware that if things at the hospital remain the same and Wayne Medical Center is not able to be classified as a critical access hospital, they will not be renewing the contract. Wayne Medical Center CEO Tyler Taylor has been at these recent meetings to explain Maury Regional’s position. He has explained that Medicare guidelines will be changing on January 1, 2023, and reimbursement rates to our hospital will no longer be enough to justify the partnership with Maury Regional.
Wayne Medical Center is, and has for several years been classified by the government as a “sole community hospital,” given its rural location and lower number of patients. Taylor confirmed to The News that if no improvements are made to the hospital building, that does not necessarily mean that the hospital will close; it would remain classified as a sole community hospital as it is now. However, the reimbursement amounts from Medicare and Medicaid for the services provided at the hospital would simply not be enough, if nothing changes, to even come close to covering the operating and patient service costs incurred.
Taylor has explained at the budget committee meetings that there is a new classification for hospitals that will become recognized by the federal government on January 1st called Rural Emergency Healthcare (REH). If the county chooses to make major renovations and improvements at the hospital’s current location, they would most likely be able to obtain an REH designation, but would only provide Emergency Room and limited overnight patient visits with no extended inpatient or swing bed stays. Taylor clarified that even an REH designation would not be profitable enough to significantly lower the loss of revenue experienced by Maury Regional. “We want everyone to be clear, Maury Regional is a not-for-profit network of facilities,” said Taylor. “We are, and will continue to be, a community-based health system.”
At the recent budget committee meetings, Taylor has explained a possible solution to the problem. The federal government has designated a hospital classification called Critical Access Facility (CAF). A CAF is eligible to be reimbursed 101% of allowable costs from Medicare/Medicaid – a much higher reimbursement rate than what they now receive, or would even receive if they obtained an REH designation. The thing that keeps Wayne Medical Center’s currently location from being designated a CAF is its distance from other critical access hospital facilities. The guidelines set forth by the government state that in order to be designated as critical access, a hospital must be 35 miles or more from the nearest CAF. The hospitals in Savannah and Lawrenceburg, both of which are CAFs, disqualify the current location of Wayne Medical Center from the CAF classification.
The proposal set forth by Maury Regional is the construction of a new hospital facility somewhere in Wayne County that would meet the distance requirements so as to be classified as a Critical Access Facility. The proposal describes a modern new facility that would potentially be slightly smaller than the current hospital but would be able to offer just as many if not more services than it does currently. The location proposed for the new facility is the county’s Industrial Park, located at Highway 13 South between Waynesboro and Collinwood. This site is in almost precisely the geographical center of the county and meets the distance requirements to other CAFs. It is also property that the county already owns, eliminating the cost of purchasing another property.
When pressed about the cost to the county of a new facility, Maury Regional officials have not been willing to give an exact amount, but speculation is that the cost would be at least $50 to $60 million. This amount does not include the cost of infrastructure such as water, sewer, gas, and electricity. Several members of the Wayne County Commission have expressed their apprehension at approving the construction of a new facility without a more definite estimate of the cost. Maury Regional has said that they would be willing to contribute at least $6 to $8 million toward the “soft cost,” such as medical equipment, fixtures, IT, etc.
The Wayne County Commission has scheduled a Town Hall Meeting for Saturday, January 14, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. for further discussion of the hospital situation. They strongly encourage members of the community to come to this meeting and let their commissioners know their feelings on the topic. The meeting will be held at the Waynesboro Middle School cafeteria.
