|
Business
| News | Sports |
Business | Opinions |
Columns | Entertainment |
| Science/Technology| Weather | Archives | E-mail Us |
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
Columbia's Rehab Hospital will close doors in February
135 employees out of work; 60 patients must find care elsewhere because of cuts in Medicare spending
By Tamara Hill
Caller-Times
After more than 11 years of providing skilled nursing and rehabilitation services to Corpus Christi, Rehabilitation Hospital of South Texas will close next month, representatives from the Columbia/HCA Delta Division said Monday.
On Feb. 24, the hospital's 135 employees will be out of work and 60 patients will be forced to find care in other facilities, said Carmen Arias, marketing director for the hospital. Arias said the closure is a direct result of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that proposes to reduce Medicare spending by $115 billion over the next five years.
"As time goes on, it's getting harder to provide the quality of care we offer with reimbursements getting less and less each year," Arias said. "The reimbursement act has dwindled so much that I think most of the employees knew that sooner or later we wouldn't be able to continue operations."
According to the American Hospital Association, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is targeted to reducing Medicare reimbursements for hospitals, skilled nursing units and rehabilitation therapy centers. The Rehabilitation Hospital provides only skilled nursing and rehabilitation inpatient/outpatient services for stroke, head injury, orthopedic and spinal cord injury patients.
Representatives from the hospital would not disclose the cost of running the facility or the amount of Medicare funding that was cut.
However, Jeff Christensen, interim chief executive officer, said since the Balanced Budget Act went into effect in 1999, reimbursements for skilled nursing were cut by 50 percent. And because the act also includes reducing rehabilitation therapy funding within the next two years, the closure was inevitable, he said.
"The majority of our patients receive Medicare and approximately half of them go to skilled nursing," Christensen said. "All we do is rehabilitation and skilled nursing. When you put everything (the funding cuts and cost of operations) together, it doesn't add up."
The Corpus Christi Medical Center was also affected by skilled nursing funding cuts from the Balanced Budget Act, said Mary Jo Currey, marketing director for the center, which includes the local Bay Area and Doctors Regional hospitals. Bay Area's 16-bed skilled nursing unit was closed, leaving patients to get treatment at Doctors Regional's 26-bed skilled nursing unit. The unit has been sufficient for meeting patients needs, Currey said.
Rehabilitation Hospital is no longer accepting patients and hopes to have the 25 to 30 inpatients well enough to go home by Feb. 24, Arias said. Columbia has been making efforts to transfer the 135 employees to other Columbia facilities, she said.
Medical writer Tamara Hill can be reached at 886-3794 or by e-mail at hillt@caller.com
| Stock look up | Business
Calendar | Talk about
this story | Next Story
| Home |
© 2000, a
Scripps Howard newspaper.
All rights reserved.
|
 |
 |
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
