Not Dead Yet: Options Emerge for a LG Hospital Reopening

Judge Mueller and Mayor Dockery Co-Author Letter Demanding Action from Hospital Board

St. Mark’s Medical Center may be closed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean La Grange’s hospital is going to stay that way.

St. Mark’s board chair Dudley Piland said since the hospital’s closure Oct. 12, “several” interested parties have emerged wanting to take over operation of the medical center.

“It’s amazing who has come out of the woodwork,” Piland said. “I just wish this had happened before we closed.”

One of those interested parties is Progressive Health Group, which owns, operates and/or manages 13 hospitals and medical centers mostly in the Mississippi and Alabama area.

This was the same group that learned about St. Mark’s upcoming closure just days before it happened and tried to engineer an 11th-hour deal to keep the hospital open.

Two Progressive officials joined in a pair of meetings facilitated by County Judge Dan Mueller last week as they try to get something done to reopen the hospital.

Thursday’s meeting included La Grange mayor Jan Dockery and La Grange interim city manager Frank Menefee and others.

All pledged their assistance in trying to help Progressive reopen the hospital.

“We’re working diligently from our perspective to get it reopened,” said Quentin Whitwell, founder and CEO of Progressive via video conference in Friday’s meeting. “We’re turnaround specialists. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”

Whitwell said his company has turned around several financially struggling hospitals using the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) model, which began this year in Texas, as a means to stem rural hospital closures.

Conversion to an REH, which St. Mark’s did in early 2023, brought St. Mark’s an injection of funding including a $272,000 monthly “facility fee” from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) along with increased reimbursement rates for Medicare.

But at the same time St. Mark’s got that designation, staff and services were slashed.

That’s the sort of doubledipping financially that is not what the REH designation was intended for, some critics have pointed out, and may have actually hastened St. Mark’s demise.

He said one of his company’s keys is making outpatient services robust – the exact opposite of what St. Mark’s did.

“You have to build up outpatient speciality services,” Whitwell said.

A local bid with a different hospital administrator, with the help of Mueller, was actually organized earlier this year to take over St. Mark’s – an effort that was sunk when St. Mark’s accepted that REH designation.

Whitwell said he didn’t want to disparage anyone involved with St. Mark’s but he also doesn’t want anyone standing in the way trying to reopen the hospital.

But several people at Thursday’s meeting felt that the St. Mark’s board had done just that – put up barriers to others trying to reopen the hospital.

Piland said the St. Mark’s board would not stand in the way of a group trying to reopen the hospital, but it was his understanding that any group that wanted to would have to pay off, or assume, the $13 million still owed on the mortgage of the 18-year-old medical center.

Former county attorney John Wied said he thinks that mortgage could be negotiated down.

Friday both Mueller and Dockery said they would be willing to travel to Washington D.C. if needed, to meet with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials in an effort to lower that obligation. Whitwell pledged support of his group for such an effort.

Both Mueller and Dockery also indicated at Thursday’s meeting that they wanted to make a formal request for the St. Mark’s board to meet to consider the Progressive offer, and name them the new hospital operator.

Friday, they made good on that plan, co-signing a letter delivered by a Sheriff’s Deputy to Piland in part saying “The Fayette County Community of Citizens and businesses contributed the funds necessary to induce the Department of Housing and Urban Development to guarantee the construction mortgage to build St. Mark’s Medical Center (SMMC). We, on behalf of the citizens and institutions of Fayette County demand the SMMC Board, which now appears to have no useful function to transfer SMMC to Progressive Health Group, LLC that we may have the opportunity to regain the health-care on which we relied, and as promised.”

Prior to getting the letter Piland said Friday morning that the St. Mark’s board “hasn’t gotten that far down the road” regarding meeting to vote on any transfer of the hospital to a new group.

As of now, what remains of the hospital remains under the control of Community Hospital Corporation of Plano, and by extension, the St. Mark’s board.

Apparently, the hospital, though closed, is going to be well-maintained as far as climate control inside, so the equipment would be well positioned for a possible reopening.

The bigger issue now that the hospital has shut it’s doors, Piland said, for any group wanting to reopen the hospital is the red tape – either reapplying, or reinstating, licenses and reimbursements avenues from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“Every day that lapses is a bigger hurdle to leap,” Whitwell said. “We’re willing to step up.”