Hospital Makes Miraculous Recovery Benewah Community Hospital Breaks New Ground In St. Maries

Four years ago, Benewah Community Hospital had few patients, only three doctors, and was losing money.

Today, making a healthy profit, the St. Maries hospital breaks ground on a $2.8 million expansion, bucking a national trend of struggling or shrinking rural hospitals.

What changed?

After years of nose-thumbing, hospital officials and local doctors got together in 1992 and negotiated the hospital’s purchase of the physicians’ adjacent clinic.

Continuing the conflict, both sides had realized, sent locals to Coeur d’Alene or Spokane for medical care.

“If the clinic’s saying the hospital’s bad and the hospital’s saying the clinic’s bad, why stay in the community for care?” said hospital administrator Mike Boyd. “Spokane’s not that far away.”

Under the new arrangement, the hospital covers overhead costs and administration; the doctors work under contract to the hospital.

“It’s worked well,” said Dr. Rick Thurston, the hospital’s chief of staff. “I don’t want to get tied up in what computer you need, how do you bill this, or who to hire and fire.

“We can be doctors,” he said, “not businessmen.”

The arrangement has also made it easier to recruit doctors, he said, since as contract doctors, they don’t have to buy into a clinic. Also, each added doctor meant less on-call time for the rest.

“Each time you add a doctor, it becomes a little bit easier to add the next one,” Dr. Thurston said.

Today, the hospital has nine full-time physicians, one part-time family practitioner, and 14 visiting specialists.

The patients have come back - en masse, Boyd said. Four years ago, only 40 percent of St. Maries residents were getting their health care there. Now, nearly 75 percent stay in town.

“So that doubles your income right there,” said Boyd.

The upshot: a hospital that was struggling to stay open a few years ago is now making enough money to fund most of its expansion from profits. The turnaround led “Hospitals Magazine,” the journal of the American Hospital Association, to last year name Benewah its rural “Comeback Hospital of the Year.”

Many rural hospitals are struggling or downsizing as doctors are drawn to urban or suburban health maintenance organizations.

The expansion will make literal the merger of hospital and clinic, stretching across Eighth Street to join the two buildings. The City Council last summer voted to close Eighth Street, over the protests of some citizens. No longer will patients have to be wheeled across the street.

The hospital is adding a new main entrance, lobby, emergency room and physical and respiratory therapy areas. It will also add a new lab, radiology department and pharmacy, which are now at opposite ends of the building.

Already, the hospital has spent about $350,000 in savings to pay for a separate clinic expansion, storage area and architectural fees. The hospital also hopes to add a helicopter pad, Boyd said.

Three years ago, local voters approved a $300,000 levy to help pay for the 18,000-square-foot expansion. The rest of the money - about $2.5 million - will be repaid from hospital revenue over the next 15 years. That puts the hospital under the gun to continue its fiscal track record, Boyd acknowledged.

After years in the red, the hospital in 1993 turned a profit of $552,000; and $645,000 in 1994. Last year, profits dipped slightly to $189,000, Boyd said. The reason for the dip, he said, was that expenses were up 12 percent, while revenues rose only 6 percent.

Still, with the caliber of its medical staff and the new facility, Boyd said he doesn’t foresee any problems paying for the facility.

A groundbreaking ceremony is slated for 11 a.m. today in the hospital basement.

“We’re not going to spend an hour outside in this weather,” Boyd said with a chuckle. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo