Hospital tax goes to vote

Now that the ballots have been mailed to residents and probably sit in piles of bills and junk-mail, the question remains for those loitering ballots: Will voters once again approve the renewal of the one-percent sales tax?

This issue has been critical to the Winslow Memorial Hospital, a 501c3 non-profit that has struggled with the difficulties that faces many rural hospitals ­ some of which close due to the rising costs in health care and low income of these areas.

WMH is considered a Critical Access Hospital," because it is serves many rural communities that are more than 35 miles away from other hospitals. If someone were to get hurt for example on the reservation or somewhere like Clear Creek, and the hospital were not in Winslow, they would have to wait almost another hour to get to Flagstaff, which would put many lives at risk.

Critical Access Hospitals are eligible for cost-based reimbursement for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Additional reimbursement is provided for serving Medicaid patients. At the WMH about 80 percent of the patients are on Medicare and Medicaid.

This issue of a healthcare facility is also an economic development issue for potential employers. Businesses would not likely consider a town to for their relocation if healthcare was not there also.

"As you see more and more people retiring and buying homes, one of the biggest factors for their decision on where to move is if that place has a health care facility," said WMH CEO Jeff Hamblen.

Since Hamblen came here to direct the hospital in 2002, WMH has since joined the board of Northern Arizona Healthcare ­ parent corporation of the Flagstaff Medical Center. Hamblen said that stability brought by being on that board is not enough and does not bring in budgeting funds. This he said, is what the city tax has helped the hospital afford ­ replacing and updating supplies, beds and monitoring equipment.

WMH has been around for 50 years in Winslow and voters here have approved the sales tax every five years for the last 25 years since it was first created. While three-quarters of the revenue goes to the City of Winslow general fund, 25 percent of the tax goes to the WMH. This is a critical issue for the Memorial Hospital CEO Jeff Hamblen because the local hospital's own health is dependent on the voters to push the tax through.

The one-percent tax is already one-third of the City of Winslow's overall three-percent sales tax rate. Navajo County only adds and an additional .5 percent to the tax, while the State of Arizona requires all cities to administer a 5.6 percent rate for the legislative coffer.

In 2004, Dan Anderson of the Arizona Board of Regents issued a report to the Governor's Taskforce on Nursing, titled "The Economic Impact of Arizona's Healthcare Industry." The conclusion of the report claimed that the healthcare industry is responsible for about 8.6 percent of the jobs in Arizona.

"During the '90s until today, healthcare employment has grown 20 percent faster than other Arizona jobs," stated the report.

These jobs in Arizona as of 2004 paid an average of $41,348 a year. In Winslow, the pay for healthcare professionals is a little more because the hospital has to offer higher salaries to entice the professionals who typically desire more community amenities like good housing, entertainment, arts, culture and higher social education that is found in larger cities with bigger economies.

"As Winslow does eventually grow, there will come a time when WMH will need to upgrade to a newer and larger facility, and as the city talks about a five, 10 or 15 year plan for Winslow, healthcare will need to be part of this," Hamblen said.

In the meantime, Hamblen said that the WMH could be maintained as there is nothing wrong with the facility currently, but new technologies are always coming out in the health care industry and his facility will always have to keep-up.

"You purchase a couple pieces of hospital equipment and you can easily find yourself spending up to one million dollars," Hamblen said.

Part of the problem is with the development of new technologies, patients will choose treatments that are convenient or less painful and will go to hospital where they think they will get better treatment.

"The hospital's financial condition was severely challenged during the last five years since this tax was last affirmed by the community. Without these revenues the hospital would have surely failed," Hamblen wrote in a letter to the City of Winslow.

"I think there were some poor management decisions made at this hospital prior to my arrival that led to its decreased revenue," Hamblen said.

He has spent the last few years bringing the hospital back to financial stability and has been tending to better staffing and relations with the Winslow Indian Health Care Center. Currently, the two health care facilities are considering a Healthcare campus where the two could share certain services be more efficient and save the money instead of duplicating patient services.

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