As mounting financial pressures leave some hospitals with no option but to close, patients become the real victims, traveling significant distances across "hospital deserts" for care, according to KQED News.
After its neighboring full-service hospital, San Pablo, Calif.-based Doctors Medical Center, shut down in April 2015, Berkeley, Calif.-based LifeLong Medical Care's health center in San Pablo has become the only source of care for the more than 400,000 residents in San Pablo, nearby Richmond and surrounding cities, the report states.
However, LifeLong Brookside San Pablo operates as an urgent care facility, not a full-service hospital, and does not have an emergency department. For patients seeking care for life-threatening issues, providers' only options are to send patients to hospitals at least 10 — in some cases 20 — miles away. The closest emergency is at Kaiser Permanente Richmond Medical Center, which reported a 50 percent increase in visits since DMC closed.
Community leaders fear the heightened desire for consolidation and cost efficiency over care will dramatically affect patients, especially low-income and uninsured populations, as hospitals serving such patients typically bring in less revenue and face a higher financial burden to provide adequate care.
"Hospitals lose the incentive to work through alternatives because it's not financially lucrative to try to meet halfway for communities who are primarily Medi-Cal," Kathleen Sullivan, a Richmond community leader, told the publication.
Desmond Carson, MD, a physician at LifeLong Medical Care who spent 15 years as a physician at DMC before its closure, told KQED News DMC closed because it was not lucrative for the hospital to treat low-income Medi-Cal patients, despite such patients making up roughly 80 percent of its medical base.
"If there's a Nordstrom, there'll be healthcare. Healthcare follows the dollar, simple as that," he said.
To access the full report, click here.