Pemiscot Memorial Hospital won't close, for now

PEMISCOT COUNTY, MO (KFVS) - The question Bootheel viewers keep asking, is Pemiscot Memorial Hospital closing?

The answer for right now is, no. Could it close in the future? Maybe.

Heartland News first interviewed Kerry Noble on the issue in February when he said the hospital might have to close if the Medicaid expansion didn't go through.

Noble has since retired from his CEO position, but helps out on a consulting basis.

Since Missouri didn't take action on the Medicaid expansion, Noble says the hospital isn't closing it's doors yet, but is on that path.

"I know there's been a lot of speculation about that, and the primary concern has to do with the fact that the state legislature did not expand Medicaid coverage during this last session, and that has a lot of implications for our hospital," said Noble.

Noble said they've reduced their operating budget by 3 million dollars. As a result, they've had to lay off 40 workers and reduce funding for a number of employee benefits.

Noble called it traumatic to go through this process.

So is there anything that can be done other than hoping for a Medicaid expansion?

"In our location probably not, just because of the population of the demographic we serve, unfortunately we don't have a lot of commercial pay payers in our area, there's not a lot of local employment in our industry, we're primarily an agriculture area, and of course again we have a low income population that we serve," said Noble.

What does the future of the hospital look like?

"It's going to be very bleak to be honest with you unless we see some movement in the expansion of Medicaid," said Noble.

Without an expansion, Noble said they could be on the path to close.

"I think that's very much the case because what's going to happen to us is over time, it's going to erode our ability to upgrade our clinical equipment capabilities, maintain the level of services we need to offer our population, and ultimately I think it's just going to reach a point where our financial liability is going to suffer, we're not going to be able to gain access to capital, we're not going to be able to borrow necessarily the money we need," said Noble.

Noble said about 48 percent of the people they serve are on Medicaid and 14 percent are uncompensated care.

He said a majority of those people would qualify for enrollment if the government would have passed the Medicaid expansion.

Noble said it's important to keep the hospital open because without it, it will be difficult for patients to get treatment anywhere close.

Stay tuned to Heartland News for the latest on this developing story.

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