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Bucking a National Trend, Rural Hospital in West Plains Begins $70 Million Expansion

Shovels were at the ready ahead of Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony at Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains, Missouri.
OMC
/
Ozarks Medical Center Facebook
Shovels were at the ready ahead of Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony at Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains, Missouri.
Shovels were at the ready ahead of Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony at Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains, Missouri.
Credit OMC / Ozarks Medical Center Facebook
/
Ozarks Medical Center Facebook
Shovels were at the ready ahead of Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony at Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains, Missouri.

Many rural hospitals are closing down or being bought out by larger health care systems. But one hospital in the rural Ozarks is bucking that trend — it’s expanding.  Listen to the audio report here.

Hospital officials at Ozarks Medical Center in West Plains say the expansion will cost around $70 million. The bulk of that will come from a USDA loan, with short-term financing coming from local banks.  The OMC Foundation also hopes to raise $5 million from charitable giving.

OMC broke ground on its expansion project Tuesday.

The project includes a 97,000 square foot space for clinics and imaging, as well as an updated pharmacy and food service area. An additional 20,000 square feet will become a center for women’s health.  

Before now, many of those facilities were spread out throughout the town.

Tom Keller, president and CEO of the hospital, said the project will make things much more convenient for patients.

“All the specialists, all the proceduralists, will be in one building. So, what’s really nice for the patients, when we get this completed, is that they’ll be able to come into one building. They’ll be able to schedule, register, see the physician, get tests done in one place,” Keller said.

According to US News, Howell County’s poverty rate is 22.7 percent, making it among the poorest counties in the state.

Dave Dillon, spokesman for the Missouri Hospital Association, said the trend of rural hospitals closing is due to several reasons—one being that they are often in high-poverty areas.

“So when an individual is uninsured, they tend to delay care or not get it. When they do get care, it’s often through the emergency department, which is more expensive—both for the patient if they can pay, and for the hospital if they cannot,” Dillon said.

When uninsured patients seek the emergency room for care, Dillon said, those costs are often shifted onto paying patients who do have insurance.

Missouri lawmakers, for years, declined to expand the state's Medicaid program, despite requests from hospital and business groups to do so.  The Medicaid expansion would have led to more low-income Missourians having government-funded health insurance, which in turn would have alleviated the burden hospitals are feeling from providing for uninsured patients.

You can click here to see KSMU’s eariler reporting on how the Medicaid expansion debate didn't help low-income Missourians struggling to access and pay for health care.

In the future, Dillon said, more hospitals will need federal loan subsidies like OMC’s USDA loan to thrive.

Rural hospitals are often lifelines to their local economies, too.

David Bossemeyer, director of economic development for West Plains, said OMC is the area’s largest employer.

KSMU’s Bailey Vassalli contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 KSMU. To see more, visit KSMU.

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Bailey began working for KSMU as a photography intern in October of 2017. She also works as a photographer with Missouri State University Photographic Services and as both a photographer and senior reporter with The Standard, Missouri State’s student newspaper. Previously, she has interned with the Snohomish County Tribune, the Sullivan Independent News and Babe Ruth League. Once she graduates in December of 2018, she hopes to work as a photojournalist — whether that means freelancing or with a newspaper.
Christopher Beyer