Alliance Hospital reopens for inpatients

Alliance Hospital has never closed, said Dr. Kenneth Williams, although public perception has varied.

Alliance closed its inpatient services last year, however it was a requirement as it obtained a new designation as a Rural Emergency Hospital, which allowed it to receive funding and support from CMS [Medicare] to continue emergency care in rural communities, he said.

With a recent ruling the emergency room will have to close March 31 while inpatient care is being reinstated.

Williams said CMS Medicare called back to say they had made a mistake and they are removing the Rural Emergency Hospital status at Alliance.

Williams said accepting Rural Emergency Status had given the Hospital some funds to continue with emergency operations but that goes away starting in April.

“So, we are going to close the emergency room, but the hospital will still be open to take some inpatients,” he said.

He explained that the cost to staff an emergency room 24/7, 365 days of the year is huge without a patient volume. The lack of full support from ambulance service providers via 911 has not provided sufficient patients to operate the emergency room.

“We can’t pay the staff,” he said, adding that Alliance, now open for inpatients, will serve patients referred from Williams Medical Clinic and also from any surrounding doctors and clinics in the county.

To admit a patient the doctor merely calls Williams and they will be admitted, he said.

Williams said it costs over $1 million a year just to have a doctor at the emergency room for 24 hours every day for a year.

“That’s not counting the cost for nurses, x-ray and labs and procedures,” he said. “You must have patients to offset the cost.”

Outpatient services, such as the lab and x-rays, will be open from eight to ten hours a day, he said.

Alliance had to give up its inpatient status in order to receive Rural Emergency Hospital status.

“Now in order for survival, we have to give up the Emergency Room since we are losing the Rural Hospital status,” he said.

Inpatient care will include acute care patients, transitional care clients and a few hospice patients who are sick.

Certain chronic diseases such as diabetes and pneumonia, will be among those served.

Despite the ups and downs of remaining open as a hospital, Williams said he is optimistic.

“We are trying to survive until, hopefully, a better day,” he said. “I am an optimistic person. I want to make sure the community knows the hospital is not closed and never has been closed.

“It’s just not a good time for healthcare for small rural hospitals and anybody can see that’s the case.” At one time Williams said he had 150 employees plus at Alliance and about 30 employees in the clinic. The staff at the hospital dropped below 100 on the first round of medicare cuts, he said. That number is likely to fall to as low as 50 employees, he said.

But Williams said his life as a physician has been about community service.

“Beyond that, you have to have a purpose,” he said, adding that he began practicing in Marshall County because of the healthcare statistics in the county were so horrible.

But with the team he assembled, the statistics improved to somewhere in the middle of the state with a goal to get the county’s statistics up to the upper echelon.

His goal has always been to contribute to the overall health of the citizens of Marshall County, he said.

“If the hospital closes, I think county officials know it will dramatically affect their prospects,” he said. “It’s sad to see the state of rural America losing access to proper healthcare, which includes accessibility. Continuity of care is important if you are a patient. Patients know it is much easier for us to take care of them in our system, than for them to have to start over somewhere else. So, the consistency of healthcare is important.”