Rhea County, Tenn., Seeks State's Approval for $24M Hospital
Posted on: Monday, 15 August 2005, 15:01 CDT
Aug. 13--Rhea County is seeking state approval to build a $24 million critical-access hospital to replace the existing Rhea Medical Center.
The state Health Services and Development Agency will consider the certificate of need request later this month.
If approved, construction would start in spring 2006 and take about 13 months to complete, Chief Financial Officer Harv Sanders said.
The new hospital, which would be within a mile of the aging county-owned facility, would be about 40 percent larger and allow for the addition of new services and technology, including magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, equipment.
The current hospital is 50 years old and can't be expanded, Sanders said.
"It wouldn't meet today's codes to go up, and since it's on a hillside, we can't go out," Sanders said.
Rhea Medical Center was designated as a critical-access hospital in February. That designation, which required lowering the number of beds from 48 to 25, allows the hospital to take advantage of federal reimbursement benefits, Sanders said.
Critical-access hospitals are reimbursed by the government based on cost, which, he said, would help offset the expense of building a new facility.
The Rhea County Commission is expected to vote on a bond issue next week, but no county funds will be used to pay for the new building, Sanders said. The planned 68,000-square-foot facility would be paid for by hospital operations.
The hospital may in the future decide to give up its critical-access designation and revert back to an acute-care facility in order to add more beds and meet growth projections, Sanders said.
The county has a population of 28,400, according to the 2000 Census.
"Every new hospital that has opened has had huge numbers," Sanders said, citing the newly built Fort Loudoun Medical Center in Lenoir City as an example. "We don't think we'll be any different."
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Source: The Knoxville News-Sentinel
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