Message to Our Community

Main Thesis: Yes – The “Big Beautiful Bill” will absolutely hurt rural hospitals. It threatens to close emergency rooms, force families to forgo care, and dismantle rural communities. We need more support, not less.

In District 3, nearly 1 in 3 people or 228,109 or 31% are covered by Medicaid, including 14,706 people with disabilities and 36% are children.

1. Service Closures: Rural hospitals will be forced to eliminate emergency care, primary care, hospice, nursing homes, and behavioral health services.
2. Hospital Closures: Over half of Colorado’s rural hospitals are operating in the red. Medicaid cuts will force many to close.
3. Delayed Emergency Response: With fewer local ERs, accident victims on rural highways may die before reaching care.
4. Loss of OB Services: Many hospitals already lack obstetric services; cuts will make this worse and further expand the “maternity desert”.
5. Long Travel for Basic Care: Patients may have to drive 1-2 hours for chemotherapy, imaging, or even wound care.
6. Economic Decline: Hospitals are top employers in rural towns. Closures will devastate local economies.
7. Harm to Children and Seniors: Medicaid supports essential care for kids and nursing home residents.

Prowers Medical Center is located in Lamar, Colorado in the southeast corner of the state. The Hospital is designated as a Critical Access Hospital (CAH) serving a four- county region that includes Prowers, Baca, Bent, and Kiowa counties.

Prowers Medical Center has professional and support staff of over 200 serving 20,000 residents in Southeast Colorado. For over 50 years, we have been committed to providing preventative and healing medical care, health education and improving the quality of life in the communities served.

We are designated as a Level IV Trauma Center through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Evidence shows that injured patients treated in a trauma-designated facility have better outcomes than those treated in a non-designated area, even in rural settings.

We operate a Rural Health Clinic (RHC) that offers a stable healthcare Provider base consisting of Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants, all with local ties to the region.

Our financial status is currently stable. We are currently debt free and have very respectable Days Cash on Hand. Average age of plant is low and due to the unknown Medicaid reductions, we do not have any large-scale capital expenditures planned in the foreseeable future.

As an organization, we continue to be focused on Consistency, Growth, Adaptability and Resilience to Change. We are constantly seeking ways to enhance our facilities and expand our programs to meet the evolving needs of our communities served. This includes:

• Retaining Local Patients through Stable Primary and Specialty Services
  We have a strong and solid primary healthcare Provider base and are able to provide consistent coverage rotations with Physicians in General Surgery, Orthopedics, Obstetrics/Gynecology – Women’s Health Services, Hospitalists, and Emergency Medicine to ensure our patients won’t need to leave the region for quality, competent, and compassionate care.
• Growth and Retention of Service Lines – Strategic Plan Priority Project
  We continually invest in new technologies, training of our staff, strategically purchasing new equipment, and partnering with other organizations to provide comprehensive care and capabilities to our region. Our approach is to use practical, rural-focused strategies to care for our patients.
• Re-Opening of Service Lines
  We successfully re-opened our Labor & Delivery Unit after a 16-month closure to ensure regional patients have a safe and patient-centered facility to receive care and experience a caring and compassionate delivery. We are the only facility offering this service line ranging from a one-hour to two-hour radius. Expectant mothers will receive exceptional care from conception to pregnancy to delivery and postpartum through the expertise of two OB/GYNs with a combined experience of 55 years in the field.We re-opened our Convenient Care Clinic two nights a week to help keep care local while improving access to care.
• Clinical Capabilities and Specialties
  Our Orthopedic Surgery line has expanded from two-days per month to that of four-days per month demonstrating our desire to bring system-level specialists to our rural setting to keep care local. Patients requiring therapy can receive quality care from our highly skilled Speech and Physical Therapy rehabilitation services team.We offer noteworthy Cardiac Rehab and Pulmonary Rehab programs supervised by board-registered and certified respiratory therapists and provide other extensive services right here at home.We offer nearly all infusion therapies that are available in larger, urban facilities. Having local doctors oversee outpatient chemotherapy, or other infusion therapy, saves patients and their families the expense and time of traveling out of town for care, helping to maintain daily routines with the comfort of family and friends nearby.We offer extensive diagnostic laboratory testing, performed by certified Medical Technologists. Most lab tests, including those for general health and emergencies, are performed in-house.Our Imaging Services department provides extensive diagnostic testing through the utilization of onsite advanced technology and equipment.
• Building Stronger and More Collaborative Partnerships
  Collaborations and partnerships with regional networks allow rural hospitals to leverage shared resources, data, and best practices to help reduce costs, retain more patients locally, and to strengthen the delivery of rural healthcare. The clinical affiliations with clinical partners also allow us to bring system-level specialists to our rural setting to keep care local and improve access.
• Improving Financial Systems and Revenue Cycle Management
  We continuously take advantage of opportunities to review and assess billing systems and workflows to maximize revenue capture, reduce denials, and ensure services delivered are reimbursed properly and timely. Through partnership with our managed services provider, we are able to capitalize on their consulting and group purchasing power.

The proposed health care cuts threaten significant reductions in funding reimbursements that could have devastating consequences for rural healthcare, health outcomes and costs, jobs, and the economic success of rural communities.