Crotched Mountain Foundation's board voted Monday to close its longtime specialty hospital in Greenfield, likely by the end of August.
On a call with reporters Monday evening, Crotched Mountain officials cited a storm of factors — declining patient admissions, difficulty attracting qualified staff, state funding issues — as reasons for the closure, but said stagnant reimbursement rates were a significant factor.
"We lose money on every patient — so even if we filled the hospital, we'd be filling the hospital with patients where we lose money," Crotched Mountain Foundation President Michael Coughlin said.
Most of the hospital’s patients are on Medicaid, and Coughlin said he hospital hasn’t seen an increase in reimbursement rates for such coverage since 2010. The hospital has been treading water financially for the last several years, he said, operating with losses of $4 million to $5 million per year.
"The services that we provide are very intensive, labor intensive services, and there just never was an ability to capture what it truly costs," Coughlin said. "So, yeah, budget cycles have something to do with it, but even if we got a little bit of an increase, it wouldn't amount to $5 million a year."
