ACH more than just healthcare

Allen County Hospital, which will have Regional added to its name July 1, does more than just provide health care for Iola area residents.
Ron Baker, its administrator, pointed out the hospital also brings revenue to town through charges for services and salaries paid 150 staff. Baker spoke at a See, Hear Iola presentation Friday morning.
Baker noted the current hospital opened in 1952, having been built at a cost of $618,000 and at its peak had 65 beds in the late 1970s.
Then, with charges diagnosis-driven, “we often had all the beds filled and people in the halls,” said Baker, who worked there as a lab technician after graduating from the University of Kansas. That changed in 1982 when the federal government adopted a method of charging for services that Baker said resembled the flat-rate method used with car repairs.
“If a patient came with pneumonia,” he said, as an example, “the ‘book’ might say the cost of making the patient well was $5,000. If it took less than expected, the hospital made more money; if it took more, the hospital made less.”
Efforts were made to get patients in and out quickly.
“The only way to survive was high volume,” Baker said, with small hospitals losing out to those in metropolitan areas. In 2005, the federal government began reimbursing for Medicare patients on a cost-basis, plus 1 percent, helping rural hospitals with predominantly older populations such as Allen County. The case for critical access hospitals also came into play for rural areas such as Iola. These have a limit of 25 beds.
Critical access hospitals don’t provide long-term in-patient care “and you’re not likely to see highly technical procedures, such as open-heart surgery, done at Allen County,” he said. ACH is here an “an access point to help” in the health care stream.
The local hospital, and others like it, do have a role in more advanced care by giving patients who undergo sophisticated procedures a place close to home to recover — termed swing bed care.
“It’s much easier on family and friends to visit in a hospital close to home rather than have to drive back and forth to Wichita or Kansas City,” he said.
Swing bed care may go on for as long for six weeks, when a patient is recovering something as immobilizing as major hip surgery, Baker noted.
Allen County is a major player in out-patient care, which doesn’t require being admitted to the hospital, he said.
Baker also said the hospital was negotiating with Via Christi of Wichita to keep open the Iola Medical Associates clinic, 401 S. Washington Ave. Dr. Earl Walter retired Friday. Dr. Wesley Stone and Margaret Lesher, nurse practitioner, will continue at the clinic.
“We’re going to keep it rolling,” Baker said.
Ground was broken for the new hospital, just north of town on Kentucky Street, a year ago and is expected to open about Oct. 1.
Much new and computerized equipment will accompany the opening, but it may be a while before the hospital will be able financially to purchase its own magnetic resonance imaging device.
“It will cost about $1.5 million,” Baker said.
Meanwhile, the hospital has arranged for a new vendor to bring a  trailer-borne MRI to the hospital three days a week, rather than two. The advantage of an MRI on site also would mean having one with a larger “bore,” or the opening through which patients pass.
Baker said a machine less confining would be popular.
In answer to a question, Baker doesn’t think Medicare reimbursement will be an issue for critical access hospitals, even though World War II baby boomers are starting to take advantage.
Today, 40 to 50 percent of hospitals are critical access, but they consume just 4 to 6 percent of Medicare reimbursement funding, he said.
“If they (the feds) are going to look at changes, they’re going to go for the big bucks,” Baker predicted.

AHEAD OF Baker, Carl Slaugh, Iola administrator, mentioned some things going on with the city, to wit:
— Start on reconstruction of U.S. 54 from the east side of Iola to east of LaHarpe has been put off to about Aug. 1 because of other commitments for the contractor, Koss Construction.
— Chip and seal of streets in the southeast quadrant of Iola will start the second week of July and take about a month to complete.
— A new 12-inch water line will be laid from the water plant to town. Several leaks, including a major one that nearly drained Iola’s storage, occurred last year.
— The sampling to determine if lawns throughout town are contaminated by heavy metals from the foundries of a century ago should be completed in September. Lawn replacement will start sometime after that.
— A survey of sidewalks leading to Iola schools also will be done soon, so efforts may be made to attract a Safe Routes to Schools improvements grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation.
Realtor John Brocker said 51 Iola homes were listed for sale when “I ran the list at 5 a.m. (Friday).”
He said prices ranged from $18,000 to $550,000, with a median of $84,000. Through the end of May, 14 homes have been sold, compared to 19 for the same time in 2012. Countywide 81 homes are listed for sale.
The next See, Hear Iola community assessment will be at 10 a.m. June 28 in the New Community Building in Riverside Park.