A rural hospital in northwest Georgia, burdened by debt and big losses, is set to close Dec. 4.
Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Oglethorpe would be the fifth rural Georgia hospital to close since 2013. A bankruptcy court judge issued the closure order this week, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
Hutcheson CEO Farrell Hayes declined comment Friday on the closure, and the court-appointed trustee overseeing operations could not be reached.
Hayes said Hutcheson has about 500 employees. It’s licensed for 179 beds, but industry officials say it has only a small number of patients. The nonprofit hospital recently laid off 58 workers and shut down its intensive care unit and some other services.
Jimmy Lewis, CEO of Hometown Health, an association of rural hospitals in the state, said the Hutcheson closure ‘’is a huge economic development event.’’ When a community loses a hospital, he noted, it becomes much harder to attract and retain businesses.
Hutcheson serves Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties. In March 2014, the hospital said it employed about 900 employees and had an economic impact amounting to over $29 million in annual payroll.
“This industry is an extremely complex, changing industry that requires a new mind set and transformation,’’ Lewis said. “If they don’t do it, they close… There’s definitely the potential for more closures.”
Industry officials say Georgia’s decision not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act has hurt rural health care. Hospitals in rural areas tend to treat many uninsured people, incurring heavy losses. They would be assured more revenue if more low-income residents were covered by Medicaid.
Gov. Nathan Deal and legislative leaders have stood resolutely against Medicaid expansion, saying it would be too costly for the state. Deal has sought to address the plight of struggling hospitals, pursuing a rural hospital stabilization project involving extra funding for four areas of the state.
Lewis said Hutcheson patients won’t be as badly inconvenienced as people in other rural areas losing hospitals, because of Fort Oglethorpe’s proximity to nearby Chattanooga.
Andy Miller is CEO and editor of Georgia Health News. This story was done in collaboration with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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