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News Article – Daily Inter Lake – April 26, 2005
By Lynnette Hintze
A Medicare ruling issued Monday will let North Valley Hospital keep its critical access designation and proceed with plans for a new hospital south of Whitefish.
Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont. Made the announcement, saying he prodded the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to keep the hospital’s critical access certification intact. Without it, North Valley would not be able to get a $26 million federal Housing and Urban Development loan because HUD wanted written assurance the higher Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements possible with critical access status would continue at the new site.
North Valley Hospital saves about $1 million a year by being certified as a critical access hospital. The certification means Medicare and Medicaid pay a larger share of North Valley’s actual cost of serving elderly and indigent patients.
Hospital Administrator Craig Aasved said that while the ruling “looks very, very positive,” it comes with a 60-day comment period before it’s final. He’ll talk to HUD officials this week to find out if the preliminary ruling is enough to keep the federal agency moving forward with the hospital’s loan application for a new facility near the intersection of U.S. 93 and Montana 40.
“It’s not a done deal,” Aasved said about the HUD loan.
Aasved said he was heartened by the support from the community residents once they learned the hospital’s future was in jeopardy.
“The support from the community was fantastic, and the support from Baucus, Senator Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg was equally fantastic,” Aasved said.
Baucus, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said his office received an overwhelming show of support for the Whitefish hospital remaining a critical access hospital.
“This is a good piece of news for the Whitefish hospital,” Baucus said in a prepared release. “It took some arm twisting, but we got it done.”
North Valley is using its own money to move forward May 2 with site development that includes road and utility work.
“Hopefully we won’t miss a beat,” Aasved said.
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