By THOMAS P. WEAVER

HORIZON Editor

CELINA-Though it was announced last Friday morning Cumberland River Hospital (CRH) would shutter its doors here on March 1, there is still hope the iconic local healthcare facility will be given new life and have a chance to continue its legacy of over 50 years of service to the community.

“It is a definite priority of myself and the team at Cookeville to find a buyer—a very high priority,” Cookeville Regional Medical Center (CRMC) CEO and Celina native Paul Korth said with emotional conviction during a press conference held immediately after CRH employees were first notified of the closure in person and area officials—including both local mayors, State Representative Kelly Keisling, and others—were treated with the same respect.

“This is important to me.  You guys know me.  It’s tough,” Korth continued with genuine sincerity for the people of his hometown.  “This has been a very difficult decision for me personally and also for our organization.“It was not taken lightly by anybody on the board or anybody in our organization,” he said when asked if CRMC officials realized the scope of the detrimental effect the closure will have on the community.  “We do know the importance of this and we’ve felt like we have kept this place open a lot longer than probably anybody else would have.

“We have invested over $12 million in cash since 2012 here—money we will never get back.  We will never get it back, and as far as a sales price, it’s a fraction of that.  We gave a little over $6 million for the facility and it’s going to be fractions of that which we are going to be able to get out of it.

“We’ve done everything we can.  We’ve changed.  We’ve modified.  We’ve felt like we’ve done everything we can.”

Holding out hope

Korth explained CRMC, which has owned and operated CRH as a subsidiary for seven years, “decided about a year ago” it was going to be in their best interest to find a buyer and he said four prospective companies were currently “very interested and have continued to come back to us saying they want to buy the facility,” but they all have had difficulty securing financing.

“So that’s kinda where we are at right now,” he said.  “They want to buy it, but they can’t come up with the money.”

When asked how long CRMC is willing to wait to find a buyer, Korth said the only timetable they had set in stone was the closure date at this time.

“We have to set a permanent date on that,” he said of the looming shutdown.  “I don’t have a time frame (on finding a buyer), but it will be more than 90 days.

“This building won’t be liquidated any time short of that.  I can see summer, late summer at least, before we ever even start talking at our board-level meeting about what we are going to do with the facility up here,” Korth continued.  “So between now and then, I still think it is an open market for somebody to come in and take over the operations.”

Korth then reaffirmed his priority of securing a future for the facility when questioned about plans for the property if no buyer can be found.

“What we are going to be doing over the short term is to continue to work with these individuals who are interested in buying it,” he implored.  “That’s our first, main objective and (we will) hopefully try to get a closure on a sale.

“If not, then the next plan would be to take a look at what assets are in here, liquidate those assets, and then as far as the building and land, we have no plans or no ideas right now on what that’s going to look like or (what will) happen.”

“At the closure, we will secure the building and the land,” CRMC COO Scott Williams added.  “We will have security here.  We can’t let the building get vandalized or anything like that.

“We will protect the building and the assets in hopes that we will have a buyer.”

Enough is enough

“It is with deep regret that we have to make this announcement,” Korth said in the official press release sent out Friday morning.  “We have worked diligently to avoid closing (CRH), but have been unable to successfully arrange any other option.”

The release also explained the decision was made “following years of insufficient revenue resulting in significant financial losses from declining reimbursements and declining patient volumes,” a statement Korth and Williams expanded upon in person.

“We just can’t continue to operate with those losses,” Korth said.  “So that is why we are trying to find somebody to come in and buy it.

“The fact is our losses have continued to increase every year and year and year and year—it’s a compounding effect.  It just comes to a point where you can no longer continue to support it and put the money in, because quite honestly, nobody has it.”

Williams backed Korth up with the dismal numbers.

“Our inpatient census has been very low,” he said.  “It averages about four and (emergency room) volumes are probably about 11 a day on average.”

“The last three years have been significant and each and every year the (patient volume) decrease has gotten larger,” Korth said.

With revenue down due to the lack of patients, reimbursements from what Korth described as “all payers” are following suit.

“All of those are continuing to decrease the amount of money they pay for services,” he said, while listing commercial insurance companies, Medicare, Tenncare, and others, “and on the flip side, costs continue to go up.

“So it’s a doubling effect.  Revenues go down and costs go up and it’s not sustainable.”

Livelihoods at stake

Korth explained he held Friday’s news conference because he “felt it was very important to answer tough questions face to face, because the community deserved it.”

He also did so to address those affected, including the nearly 150 soon-to-be-displaced CRH employees, who were earning $6 million in annual payroll, and residents who are set to lose availability to an emergency room and other local healthcare services.

“What we are doing with the employees is we are meeting with each and every one of those,” Korth said.  “Today we have a little over 100 jobs in Cookeville that are open and available.”

He went on to say displaced CRH employees would have “first priority to those positions” and explained “a lot of those individuals will be offered jobs.”

CRMC human resources staff will also be on hand here this week to help individual employees and they have scheduled an all-day job fair at the hospital on February 6.

Besides employment, locals are also losing access to potentially-lifesaving urgent care and, when asked what his suggestion for those needing emergency room services would be, Korth eluded to the fact the circumstances could be much worse.

“For the tough situation that it is, we are fortunate in the fact that we have several hospitals still in the area that are open within a short drive,” he said.  “You think of out west and some of those other areas where hospitals have closed down, they are the only hospital within a 100 miles, sometimes 150 miles.

“We’ve got three hospitals within 25 miles.  It doesn’t make it any easier, but it does hopefully make it more manageable.”

The local ambulance service relies heavily on the emergency room services of CRH and the closure will also leave future emergency assistance in question.

Korth was asked if he thought the local ambulance service, which is not operated by CRH, would still exist after the closure.

“This was basically the first stop for the majority of the stuff, so it will be a big blow to the ambulance service,” Korth said.  “I don’t know.  I can’t answer that question.”

See a future HORIZON for more on the future of the ambulance service and continuing coverage of the pending hospital closure.