Thomas Gounley

TGOUNLEY@NEWS-LEADER.COM

The head of Springfield-based OCH Health System — the company that runs Ozarks Community Hospital — said in a memo to staff Monday that 200 employees will be losing their jobs as the system closes that facility's surgery department and emergency room.

In the memo, system CEO Paul Taylor says the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has "published notice that it is terminating our Medicare agreement because we do not satisfy the federal definition of a hospital."

"We had been working through the process with CMS to provide evidence that we did satisfy the definition of a hospital since late last year," Taylor wrote. "We thought we were going to be okay."

A CMS spokesman confirmed to the News-Leader Monday morning that the decision had been made.

"Under section 1861(e) of the Social Security Act, the definition of a hospital, among other things, requires a facility to be primarily engaged in providing inpatient services," spokesman Mike Fierberg said. "Ozarks Community Hospital no longer meets this definition, and therefore must be terminated from the Medicare program by law."

Fierberg was unable to provide answers to additional questions posed by the News-Leader. A spokeswoman for OCH, which released Taylor's memo, said the system was not giving media interviews "out of respect to our Springfield family."

OCH Health System — a private, for-profit company — operates one hospital at 2828 N. National Ave. and another in Gravette, Arkansas, according to its website; both facilities have a 24-hour emergency room. The system also operates numerous clinic facilities in southwest Missouri and the Gravette area.

In his Monday memo, regarding the Springfield facility, Taylor said "effective immediately, we will no longer admit to the inpatient unit."

"We will file notice with the State of Missouri that we are suspending the hospital license July 29, 2016," Taylor said. "We will close the surgery department and the emergency department on July 29."

Springfield clinics located at 2828 N. National Avenue — including the OCH Medical Offices Clinic, OCH Primary Care Clinic and OCH Northside Behavioral Medicine Clinic — will continue to operate as usual, along with the OCH Evergreen Clinic.

"We are now a one-hospital system but we are still a healthcare system and we will continue to provide excellent care to our patients," Taylor said in the memo.

In his memo, Taylor acknowledged CMS was focused on inpatient volume, but questioned how OCH could be at fault, and implied that the health system was being targeted.

"OCH Springfield has had more inpatient admissions in 2016 than at least 25 other Missouri hospitals," Taylor wrote." CMS is picking on us because we decided, as a small hospital, that we could provide primary care for at risk patients."

"Everyone in healthcare understands that primary care for at risk patients is the largest unmet need we have in this nation," Taylor wrote. "We did the right thing and nothing CMS says is going to change that fact. We have no choice but to preserve as much of our mission as we can."

"I am angry," Taylor wrote. "What CMS has done is not right. It is not ethical."

Taylor said in the memo he is appealing the CMS decision and expects to win.

"But that will provide little solace to the 200 people who will be losing their jobs and it is doubtful that we will be able to reopen the hospital after prevailing on appeal," he wrote.

The office of Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill on Monday released a letter she sent to a CMS official three days prior, asking the agency to maintain OCH's Medicare provider agreement status while it appealed the agency's decision. A spokeswoman for McCaskill said she had not yet received a response.

Ozarks Community Hospital employs about 475 in the five-county Springfield metropolitan area and 750 company-wide, according to the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

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