Mid Coast Medical Center Trinity (Texas) will close April 25, after months of attempting to secure facility long-term sustainability and financial stability.
El Campo, Texas-based Mid Coast Health System, which manages and operates the facility, pointed to “significant financial challenges experienced by hundreds of rural hospitals” that have been made worse by “delays in establishing Medicare and Medicaid billing with commercial health insurance” for the closure, according to an April 18 news release on the hospital’s Facebook page.
The health system also pointed to increased accounts payable for supplies and services, lower-than-expected revenue from collections owed on patient copays and insufficient local tax revenue for operational shortfalls.
The hospital, which also closed in 2017, aimed to qualify under the federal Rural Emergency Hospital designation. The initiative offers enhanced reimbursements to support struggling facilities. However, because it was not operational by the December 2020 federal cutoff, it is ineligible.
“We strongly believe that if Mid Coast Medical Center Trinity were eligible for REH status, it would thrive and continue to meet the community’s emergency and outpatient healthcare needs,” Brett Kirkham, CEO of Mid Coast Health System, said in the release. “We are urging our elected officials to support a waiver that would allow the Trinity hospital to access this critical support for a potential reopening in the future.”
In December, one of the health system’s other hospitals, Mid Coast Medical Center-Central in Llano, Texas, furloughed 25% of its workforce to maintain operations and reduce costs.
