By Elena Olmstead
Tri-City Herald
Copyright 2007 Tri-City Herald
PROSSER, Wash. — Prosser Memorial Hospital has less than three months to convince voters to approve a levy increase that will provide funding for its ambulance service.
The request, set to go before voters in November, will be for an increase to the existing hospital levy rate.
The money raised by the proposed increase — more than $200,000 — would be used to help defray the cost to operate the hospital’s ambulance service, which recently has been faced with financial woes.
The money problems are the result of a recent change in the hospital’s Medicare reimbursement rate. Until recently, the hospital was fully reimbursed for ambulance services provided to Medicare patients. Last fall, the hospital learned it would be reimbursed for 70 percent of those costs.
The proposal would increase the hospital’s current levy rate, which is 40 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, to 55 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value for six years. That means the owner of a $100,000 home would pay $55 a year, which would be an additional $15 a year if the levy increase is passed.
Hospital CEO Jim Tavary said the hospital has to find about $400,000 a year to keep its ambulance service operational. The proposed levy increase would raise more than half of that from those who live within the hospital’s 800-square-mile district, which includes Prosser and Benton City.
Tavary said he’s looking for a way to raise the rest of the money from local jurisdictions that benefit from the ambulance service. He said the hospital has talked to Prosser and Grandview city councils and Benton and Yakima county officials about helping provide short-term financial assistance. He would like to form partnerships with Grandview and Yakima County because the hospital has one of its three ambulances stationed in Grandview, where it responds to calls 24 hours a day. The city is not within the hospital district.
But the Grandview City Council voted last week against providing money to the hospital. Tavary said he has yet to hear back from the other entities.
If these efforts aren’t successful, Tavary said the hospital’s final hope is a campaign to get federal legislation passed to reinstate full Medicare reimbursement. He said a rural health bill has been introduced in the House and Senate that would make it possible for Prosser Memorial and others like it to be able to continue offering ambulance service.
It’s an effort he’s hoping will gain support from other rural hospitals across the country. He’s also hoping people in the community will help by contacting their legislators and pushing them to get it passed.
“We absolutely believe there is an answer there,” Tavary said of the hospital’s efforts.
“We haven’t gone into crisis mode just yet,” he added.
The worst-case scenario if none of the options work out, he said, would be for the hospital to start looking for other entities to take over the ambulance service.
But he’s hoping it won’t come to that.
“It’s such a value to the area,” he said of the service. “I hope people see it that way.”