Coffee board needs to wake up

In your last sentence I think you meant to say merge with helen keller and huntsville hospital. The thing is helen keller does not want anything to do with ecm unless ecm closes and gives everything to helen keller and that is not going to happen. Also I think one of the two hospitals in huntsville is a for profit and one is a non profit hospital. I like the ideal of selling ecm him to a profit hospital group and they said they would build a new modern hospital. A group of doctors are agreeing with this. I can't see ecm laying off many more people. I think this would be the best thing for florence. Florence & lauderdale county have got to stop carrying colbert county. Look at what florence has given up in the name of helping. Colbert county has the rail car plant, the call center, the n. american lighting co & other investment & florence has nothing. Frankly I am tired of florence & laud. cty worrying about building up colbert county, giving up everything and getting nothing. Yea every once in a while we get a new industry that employs maybe 10 people. Get on with it and sell sell sell.

I was wondering if you could tell me what Huntsville hospital has to gain in a merger with ECM and Keller hospital? What make you think a "for profit" hosptial would be a bad thing for the area? Why should ECM be the one to crawl to the table and merge with keller, when they have made numerous offers and the Keller board has no interest in entertaining anything of the sorts? Numerous attempts have been made over the past few years and it never gets very far with the Keller board.
ECM has to get out from under the current board security company, because they are going into bankruptcy (not ECM, but the bond company). Many offers have been made to purchase ECM, one for a fact I know was an offer to purchase both ECM and Keller, forming a northwest Alabama regional medical center with plans to build a new state of the art hospital within the next 7 years. Keller did not even want to hear the proposal.
A merger with Huntsville Hosptial has the idealogy of creating a staus quo, whereby nothing within the two hospitals with really change. That is the problem now. There is duplication of services and too much fighting, and nothing ever gets accomplished.
The only diference in reality between a Not-for-profit and a for-profit hospital is that the for-profit has to pay taxes on their profits. Both have to make money in order to maintain their physical plant and add new technology. ECM is already making a textbook example of a "not for profit" hospital, heck if nothing else they could write a book on how to do it. Unfortuantely, they must be able to make some money in order to keep up with new technology and retain employees.
It is not the ECM board that needs to change their thinking, it is the borad of both hospitals.

It doesn't seem like the Coffee Board is in too big of a hurry to get anything done. They met for two hours this month to discuss their options and have no plans to meet again until next month. Shouldn't this be a TOP priority for all of them if they HAVE to do something by the end of March?

It is my understanding that it is all be handled by an outside consultant. Their timetable is to have the endeavor completed by the end of March. Don't know if that will happen, but I do know that some prospective buyer have supposedly toured the facilities. As it currently stands, the ECM board does not have to move too quickly, as I understand it, but the process has been in the works for several months.

Keller will not go "for profit". jmho

So March could come and go without any decisions being made yet? Why does the paper keep making it sound like Coffee has to do something fast or face certain doom? BTW, I heard that Keller is no longer going to be matching their employees' retirement and their employees won't be getting raises this year. I thought they were doing fairly well there. Sounds like things have gone downhill for Keller too.

The evil greed of the some of the former board members and directors got ECM into the financial problems that they are today. They should have never purchased the Shoals hospital building, as it has always been a losing venture ever since they relocated to Muscle Shoals, after some of the “old money” loonies of Sheffield, refused to sell them some property for a new hospital back in the early-mid 1980’s. This area has never and will most likely never support a for-profit medical facility and I don’t see a change.

From my understanding, the same could be said for ECM East. I was informed that except for their Wound Care facility, it too is a losing venture. I have had family members who received long term treatment form their Wound Care Center and think very highly of their staff and services.

There is one factor which many of the residents have not considered into this equation and that being the hospital board in Montgomery who determines what services a hospital can offer. That is part of the reason that Keller has been unable to expand some of their services as based on the need of the population, they deemed that there was no need in the duplication of services provided by ECM. And yes, I expected that someone of the ECM board/staff fought against these expansions of services either openly and/or in private. I suspect that is part of the reason for the refusal of both boards to work together.

Because of some serious medical issues with one of my family members, there are some specialty medical services that neither Keller nor ECM can provide, which has forced us to seek medical treatment in Birmingham for the past 20 plus years. I’m sure that there are other families in the area who have done the same or sought treatment in Memphis, Nashville or even Atlanta.

So, OK let’s say that you sell ECM to a for-profit corporation and they build a new modern facility. Does that mean that you can turn the former location into a retirement home, such as the late Bob Love did with the former Shoals Hospital in Sheffield? I seriously doubt it.

My plan would to build a new modern hospital with expanded services and then turn the existing building into an exclusive for profit drug rehab facility, as it seems there are never enough beds to go around, especially here in the Shoals.

Well, it really doesn't make sense to have two hospitals so close together offering basically the same services. It's no surprise that they would lose money this way. But, I agree with Stinky, inc. that the boards appear to be unable to work together due to continuing to focus on competing with one another. The scary question is, will it be a fight to the death?

There appears to be at least four prospective buyers of ECM at present from the things I have heard. I think you will read more about it in the paper in the next few days. It would appear that things should be moving to completion in 6 weeks or so, right around the March 30 deadline. One meeting I attended, one of the prospective buyers gave his plans for the area and the proposal, and his plan would be to expand services at ECM, of course he also wanted Keller to be in the mix, but they regrettably have turned him down.
Keller will be in the same situation as ECM is currently in, though ECM's is much more dire. Though ECM can continue to pay their debts, they have no money to continue to axpand or purchase new equipment, vital things needed for a health care system to grow. You cannot continuously try to compete with one another, buy multimillion dollar pieces of equipment, and throw money in the wind to advertising, and then not reward your employees with benefits when money gets tight. That is what happened on the north side of the river. There is no need for continous reduplication.
I understand the reluctance of the Keller board and employees to not want to hear anything about a "for profit" model, but the way the hospital systems have to work, they must all function as a for profit, or they will not survive.
The prospective buyer which I heard said that ECM will continue to uphold its obligations to the indigents of the community, so the ones who cannot pay will not be turned away.
The Huntsville system wants to things. First they want to continue to syphon paying patients from the area, while maintaining essential a "triage" doc-in-the-box system where they can treat minor illnesses here, and transfer the others to themselves.
The second reason is they know a for-profit hospital system does several things that will create competition for them.
A for profit system MUST in order to survive, bring in more patients and provide state of the art quality care for them, in today's environment, or they will lose them to another hospital. Let's say we lost cardiovascular surgery here in the Shoals, that would mean Decatur or Huntsville would be the closest place to have that procedure done. The travel time alone to that facility is 45 minutes, and in an emergency, 45 mintues can mean the difference in life and eath. We do not need to lose any service in our area, if anything, we need to be recruiting more specialists to take care of the people we have now.

Both boards need to change their minds about merging, but coffee is 140 million dollars in the hole and needs to understand that they do not have much to stand on. It is ECM that is bankrupt and not the company that holds its bonds. Thats why MBIA is giving them till March to make a decision. After that time it will no longer be up to ECM. MBIA that holds its bonds will start making decisions for them.

As far as a private company coming into this area its not a god idea. First, state law says you have to treat the individual and not admit them. This means that the private hospital will then push the individual to Helen Keller. This will then put Helen Keller in the hole due to them being a not for profit hospital.

Second, Huntsville does have a not for profit hospital, Hunstville Hospital, and a for profit hospital, Crestwood, but it also has the population to sustain them. Meaning there is enough of the insured and nonisured population to supply its medicare reimbursements. In Florence area the medicare reimbursements are not as high and will hurt HKH if a for profit hospital comes to the area. It also does not hurt that the board and CEO of HH have managed its money wisely. I cannot say that for ECM. Between redoing its lobby area 4 times in the past 10 years, a price tag over 1 million each time, is not good business decisions.

Working as a health care worker in both areas I can tell you, my family members will not go to ECM.

Ccrider I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but he company that holds CHGs bonds are about to be bankrupt that's why they are needing the money from CHG.

All other problems aside the lobby has not been redone four times in the last ten years, I am in a position to know what I'm talking about. It is amazing to constantly hear people saying stuff like this.

I wonder if a for profit will replace the executives of Coffee Health Group with their own? I also wonder if they will attempt to bring in new doctors from other areas, and, if they do, will the current doctors have to compete for services with the new doctors? I imagine Marty Rash of RegionalCare has extensive clout with many physicians of all specialties. Will he attempt to bring them here? If I were a local doctor right now, I think I would be sort of worried about this. But, I could be wrong, because I don't really know how these things work. I just wonder if it will be a kind of "out with the old, in with the new" thing.

I dont think may information is wrong, but thats no the point. ecm is near broke, there is possible a for profit company coming in, and the people in this area will suffer. i do not tink it can get any clearer than that.

CCrider, your information is wrong & that was my point. Yes, ECMs lobbys been redone a dozen times in last 10 yrs. We can't do anything about that now. With that being said... I hope CHG goes to for profit.

Actually we are both wrong. Imagine that. The company that holds ecm bonds will be bankrupt, bu what is worse ecm board does not have enough equity to take care of the debt they mounted over the years. If you dont believe that ask the charge nurses who will undoubtably be reapplying for their jobs in the coming months.

By the way you must be one of the rich people who can actually afford a for profit hospital.

CCrider.... I dont have to ask. I know all about this situation. I am very excited about a lot of things that "looks" to be coming CHGs way. And actually no I'm not RICH by any means... I work fulltime to help support my family & thankfully have amazing insurance through my job.

MBIA is Coffee's bond insurer. Coffee has $140 million in debt, which is largely the result of the 1999 purchase of three area hospitals: Humana, Shoals and Russellville. Humana has since become ECM East, and Russellville has been sold. (quoted from todays paper)

Obviously you are not in the know well enough.

CCrider.... you can think what you want. I know what I know and can tell you from meetings that's been going on... CHG will be for profit before its all said & done. CHG has met all payments to the bond company so it's not that CHG is behind on paying payments. About charge RNs reapplying for their jobs... have not heard about that one yet. I know many & have asked some and they haven't head that yet either. They work at ECM & Shoals. About what was in "todays" paper. I knew it would be running before it came out... there's more to come

Yes, unfortunately i know you are right. there is more to come. i fear for this area if a for profit company comes in. its bad news for everyone. but i guess you already knew that too........

Opinions are like.... everyones got one. I think going privates the best thing to do.

The grass always looks greener on the other side. Careful what you wish for......

HaHa... I dont have to wish, it's coming!

ECM needs to worry about getting the hospital cleaned up more than anything.If you go to ECM you are lucky if you dont get a staph infection.

OK, here I go.... I have worked for non profit and for profit hospitals over the 30 years I have been involved with healtcare. That being said My benefits were alot better with for profit. My working conditions were better with for profit... My whole attitude toward everything was better with for profit. Not only those things, but also for profit has to pay taxes where not for profit do not! I hope and PRAY that on March 31 the employees of ECM will be rejoicing that they will be part of a for profit organization.. and for the naysayers, for profit has to treat everyone. INSURED or NOT.

You have a good experience with for profit hospitals, I have not. The not for profit hospital i currently work is the best i have ever worked for, not to mention the best managed.

Tinkerbell... they will be