St. Bernards Healthcare's Five Rivers Medical Center in Pocahontas, Ark., will transition to a rural emergency hospital, effective Sept. 1, the first hospital in the state to do so, according to local news outlet KAIT8.
Arkansas Act 59, or the Rural Emergency Hospital Act, took effect earlier this year. The legislation is designed to make it easier for hospitals with rural emergency status to get reimbursed for the care they provide.
The rural emergency hospital designation aims to curb rural hospital closures by offering them a chance to close infrequently used inpatient beds and focus on providing outpatient and emergency department services.
"Cost of care has certainly gone up, and reimbursement has gone up. It’s actually harder to get reimbursed for the care that we provide here at Five Rivers," Randy Barymon, administrator at the hospital, told KAIT8. "I think a lot of rural facilities are seeing a trend down inpatient extended-stay care. This was really just natural progression for us. Only about 5 percent of our business is inpatient extended care."
The hospital's transition to rural emergency status will not result in any layoffs, according to the report.