Mon Health System files a certificate of need with the state
By Suzanne Elliott and David Beard
Mon Health System said it has filed a certificate of need with the state for approval to build a small format hospital in the Fairmont area.
Mon Health’s action follows an announcement Feb. 17 that Alecto Healthcare Systems, the California-based owner of 207-bed Fairmont Regional Medical Center, was closing the hospital in the spring because of financial difficulties and its inability to find a buyer. Alecto bought FRMC in June 2014 for $15.3 million.
David Goldberg, president and CEO of Mon Health, said Tuesday the health system will file a full application with the state in the next 10 days.
“This is a perfect solution for the Fairmont region and its surrounding communities in the wake of the recent announcement by owners to close the existing hospital,” Goldberg said. “Mon Health already owns property in the Fairmont community that is sufficient to support a small format hospital. We are looking forward to bringing the high quality, cost efficiency and caring environment that Mon Health is known for to the Fairmont region.”
Mon Health’s announcement also follows the demise of a bill in the state Senate at the end of February intended to smooth the sale of the hospital.
HB 4971 would have allowed the purchase to be exempt from the certificate of need process if the buyer would renovate the hospital to create a community outpatient medical center or establish a new hospital to be located within the same county and a six-mile radius of the acquired hospital’s current campus.
The bill passed the house 97-0 but was never taken up by Senate Health. Health Chair Mike Maroney, R-Marshall, said opposition to the bill was overwhelming, but what led him to decide not to move it was a number of problems with the bill.
Maroney said he consulted with staff attorneys from the House and Senate and decided the bill couldn’t be fixed in time.
If approved by the state, the small format hospital Mon Health wants to construct will be on land it owns along Interstate 79, near Fresenius Kidney Care in Pleasant Valley.
The Mon Health micro hospital would be the first of its kind in the state.
Goldberg said the price tag of the proposed Fairmont hospital would not exceed $25 million and would be similar to neighborhood hospitals developed by Goldberg when he was senior vice president of Highmark Health’s Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh.
The recently opened AHN Hempfield Neighborhood Hospital in Greensburg, Pa., is a 10-bed inpatient facility with an emergency department and diagnostic services such as ultrasounds, CT scans and a lab. AHN is opening three similar micro hospitals later this year in the Allegheny County communities of Brentwood, McCandless and Harmar Township.
Goldberg said the hospital will take 12 to 18 months to build and was planned before Alecto announced plans to close FRMC last month.
“Allegheny Health Network has successfully brought this concept to communities in the greater Pittsburgh area as the closest example of affordable facilities that bend the cost curve downward and still deliver the highest quality and services,” Goldberg said. “This small format hospital is perfect for West Virginia families.”
WVU Health System declined to comment on Mon Health’s plans for Fairmont.
Goldberg said he is especially grateful to Gov. Jim Justice, and U.S. Sens. Shelley Capito and Joe Manchin, as well as other elected officials, for their help in moving the hospital project forward.
“We have been working directly with state and federal officials on solutions for the Fairmont community and we have every reason to believe that our project will be welcomed as part of the overall solution,” Goldberg said.
