The Wayne County Hospital Committee, an appointed committee of the Wayne County Commission, met twice last week to discuss the looming deadline for management of Wayne Medical Center and the Wayne County Ambulance Service. Current members of the Hospital Committee are Sherrie Powers, Chairman; Vickie Petty, Secretary; Logan Shull, Patrick Butler, and Larry Haggard (non-voting member). Commissioners David Martin and Alvin Creecy are members of the Hospital Committee; however, at the advice of County Attorney Andy Yarbrough, Martin and Creecy have temporarily recused themselves from the committee to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Both have worked for and continue to have family members who work for Maury Regional.
Stan Bevis, Mark Brewer, Dustin Greene, and Tom Anderson are all medical professionals in some capacity, and have kindly offered their consulting services to the county regarding the hospital issue free of charge.
Maury Regional Health Group, the company that has managed Wayne Medical Center for the past 27 years, has a lease agreement with the county that will run out in June 2024. The Wayne EMS/Ambulance Service lease agreement with Maury runs out in December 2023 – next month. Maury Regional blindsided the county last June, telling the county commission that they no longer wished to manage the facility. Talks had been ongoing in the months prior to this announcement, including the possibility of building a new hospital in a different location to meet federal requirements for a critical access facility.
Most Wayne Countians are in agreement that we want to keep our hospital. We have all heard of the closure of small, rural hospitals like ours over the past few years. 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 necessity 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.
When the county learned of Maury Regional’s wish to ultimately end their lease agreement, it became obvious that building a new hospital to meet Maury’s needs would not be in the cards for the county. Months of discussions culminated with the decision that Wayne Medical Center would take the necessary steps in order to apply to the state to become a Rural Emergency Health facility, which will keep the doors to the Emergency Department open and still allow labs and imaging. Inpatient beds will unfortunately be lost.
In September, the county issued RFPs (Requests for Proposal) for management of the hospital and the ambulance service. By this time, Maury Regional had already indicated that they were interested in coming back to the table to submit an RFP. Four companies returned the RFPs: Maury Regional, Alliant, Progressive, and Insight.
The Nashville law firm of Bass, Berry, and Sims has been assisting the county in the process of drawing up and reviewing the RFPs. Attorneys Angela Humphreys and David Esquivel virtually attended both Hospital Committee meetings last week, and designed a ranking guide for the committee to complete on each entity that submitted an RFP. Insight consistently ranked 4th in all categories, so they will no longer be considered.
On Tuesday, November 21, at 6:00 p.m., each of the three remaining companies on the list will make a presentation to the Hospital Committee and be available for a question-and-answer session. Two of the main questions will be 1.) Will they be willing to manage the ambulance service as well as the hospital, and if not, will they find a company to manage the ambulance service? 2.) Will they be interested in only managing the hospital rather that operating it? They will be asked to explain the difference in “managing” vs. “operating,” and will be asked to explain which is more beneficial for the county.
All county commissioners are encouraged to attend the Hospital Committee meeting on November 21, and anyone in the public who is concerned about the fate of our hospital is also encouraged to attend this important meeting.
