BMHD CEO issues update on home health care

JOHN DAY – Blue Mountain Hospital District CEO Cam Marlowe recently issued a press release addressing the district’s contracted Medicare homecare program. The district recently decided to make the switch from their hospital-owned Home Health and Hospice to a different program. In the release Marlowe stated that, “Unfortunately, we sent the necessary paperwork to CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) over five months ago and have yet to hear back from them (it is queued somewhere in their system).”

Marlowe also wrote, “Over the last five months, BMHD has been able to continue providing care in the homes of those who need our services.”

Find the full press prelease below:

(Press Release from Blue Mountain Hospital District CEPO Cam Marlowe)

Grant County Residents:

It has been about a year since Blue Mountain Hospital District realized that we needed to make some major updates to our home health department to ensure our ability to continue to serve our county’s home care needs for the foreseeable future.

Many of you know that other nearby hospital-owned home health and hospice agencies have closed down due to the financial strain those programs are having on their larger healthcare organization.

Last year Blue Mountain Hospital District chose to take a different approach, an approach where instead of closing down, we would identify ways to eliminate unnecessary costs while maintaining the high quality homecare that our patients rely on and expect.  Additionally, we needed to identify and pursue opportunities for higher reimbursement that would take into account the fact that we often travel up to two hours in between home visits to take care of our patients in very remote areas of our county. 

Our administrative team, in concert with the board of directors, made the decision to pursue an alternative Medicare homecare program that DOES take into account the extremely high costs of providing homecare services in rural/frontier areas.  Unfortunately, we sent the necessary paperwork to CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) over five months ago and have yet to hear back from them (it is queued somewhere in their system).  We continue to work with the various government agencies in order to keep this transition moving along, unfortunately, we are at the mercy of other agency’s timelines.  

That is the bad news.  The good news is two-fold.  Over the last five months, BMHD has been able to continue providing care in the homes of those who need our services.  I would add that other hospitals that have made this same transition have closed down their homecare services for months during their transition.  While this decision to continue to provide care during the transition is beneficial to our fifteen or so homecare patients, it has put a temporary financial strain on BMHD because we are not paid for every visit we provide our patients during this transition and in the event that we are not paid, BMHD is not billing the patients for those services.  The other good news is that our patients tell us that they continue to be happy with and are grateful for the care they have received over the last several months.

Please know that during this transition we have put our patients first and we are doing everything to continue this transition to ensure our ability to provide healthcare for our homebound patients for years to come.

And as a reminder, this transition only applies to our home health patients and does not and never has pertained to our hospice patients.  We continue to provide hospice care through our hospice agency and are committed to do all we can to provide those services in the future as well.

Thank you.

Cam Marlowe

CEO, Blue Mountain Hospital District    

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