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Carle Foundation Hospital Again Seeks Permission to Build Surgery Center

Posted on: Monday, 13 March 2006, 21:00 CST

By The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Mar. 11--MATTOON -- Carle Foundation Hospital, which lost its bid to build an outpatient surgery center in Mattoon last year, is trying again with a new application seeking permission from a state planning board.

But this time around, Carle is including a number of concessions to a major objector to its surgery center plans, Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center including a promise to help foot more of the bill for the care of needy Coles County residents.

Carle says it will build a 14,000-square-foot addition at its Carle Foundation Physicians building on Lerna Road in Mattoon, and said Friday that a freestanding surgical center would be included in the plans, pending approval by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

The board last summer rejected Carle's application for a certificate of need to build the center, saying Carle had failed to prove there was a need for the facility in Coles County.

Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Coles County was a big objector to Carle's plans, saying a competing surgery facility would hurt the hospital.

Under Carle's new plans, the building addition would include a 6,000-square-foot surgery center that would cost about $6.7 million.

The addition also will include new space for a Carle RxExpress pharmacy, physical therapy services, new diagnostic services and an urgent care center for walk-in patients.

Carle officials said the surgery center application to the state includes such significant additions to the former proposal as: An increased estimate of the amount of surgical procedures that would leave Carle facilities in Champaign-Urbana to be done at the Mattoon surgery center, and a decrease in the estimate of the surgery cases expected to leave Sarah Bush Lincoln.

The promise of financial support (about $150,000 a year) to help pay for needy patients' hospital care at Sarah Bush Lincoln.

A promise to work with other groups in the community to help establish a community care clinic for low-income local residents.

Sarah Bush Lincoln Vice President of Operations Jim Pierce said Friday his hospital wasn't aware of Carle's new plans for a surgery center, and there have been no discussions between the two hospitals about the new provisions Carle is offering.

However, Pierce added, "I'd go back to the basic issue. The Health Facilities Planning Board said there is no need do not duplicate those services. I can't imagine anything they can bring to the table that could change those findings."

Pierce also said some of his hospital's strongest objections to Carle's plans last year were Carle's paltry contributions to the care of low-income and indigent Coles County residents.

"We're glad to see they're addressing those issues," he added.

Carle Vice President of Business Development and Strategy Cathy Emanuel said Carle wants to demonstrate its commitment to serving the health care needs of everyone in Coles County.

Carle contends its physician offices last year had 64,468 patient visits, and 12,113 of them (18.8 percent) were Medicaid patients and another 18,303 (28.3 percent) were Medicare patients.

Carle officials also contend the surgery center is needed in Coles County, saying 28 percent of the county's residents leave that community for their health care needs.

Emanuel said Carle's new surgery center plans would have less effect on Sarah Bush Lincoln's surgery business because a greater share of the surgeries the new Carle center in Mattoon would handle would be transferred from Carle's own facilities in Champaign-Urbana.

Emanuel said Carle would move 300 of its Champaign-Urbana surgery procedures to Mattoon, but the patients involved in those procedures would be Coles County residents who would be spared the commute out of town.

"We said, we're taking the business from Carle instead of taking the business from Sarah Bush Lincoln," she added.

The Carle medical facility poised for expansion was a Carle Clinic branch facility until the start of last year, when the hospital's owner, the Carle Foundation, acquired its assets. The Mattoon facility now has 12 on-site doctors and nurse practitioners, and it provides access to specialty care with 15 visiting doctors, Carle officials said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

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Source: The News-Gazette

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