Erlanger Health System and Parkridge Health System, both based in Chattanooga, Tenn., will present opposing cases Wednesday in Nashville before the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency regarding Erlanger's plan to build a mental health hospital in the area, according to the Times Free Press.
The agency must give its approval before any new medical facility can be built.
Erlanger is seeking state permission to build a $25 million, 88-bed behavioral health hospital roughly a mile away from the health system's main campus. Officials at Parkridge, which already operates two mental health facilities, say the area does not need another mental health facility.
Joe Winick, senior vice president for planning, analytics and business development at Erlanger, plans to argue the Chattanooga metro area needs a short-term care facility that will provide care for vulnerable patients who lack insurance, according to the report. However, officials at Parkridge say there are already enough beds to serve the region's mentally ill.
Although Parkridge officials declined the Times Free Press' request to be interviewed, they said in a letter to the health development agency, "The Erlanger project fails to meet the applicable criteria of need, economic feasibility and contribution to the orderly development of healthcare facilities and services" and should therefore be denied, according to the report.
Erlanger's proposal would designate 24 beds for geriatric patients, 24 for adults and 18 for children and adolescents, as well as 22 for adult substance abuse patients, according to the report.