This story by Aaron Calvin was first published in News & Citizen on Feb. 6
Lamoille Health Partners will close Stowe Family Associates, its primary care practice on Mountain Road in Stowe, as the health care provider continues to cut services in search of financial sustainability.
The organization announced last week that its Stowe provider would be consolidated at its Morrisville location on Washington Highway. The change is effective Feb. 24, and any appointment scheduled with a Stowe doctor after that date will be honored at the Morrisville location.
In a statement, Susan Bartlett, chair of the health partners board and its interim CEO, cited the “mounting prices of real estate and building maintenance costs in Stowe” as a primary driver of the move.
Bartlett later described the building in Stowe as “not a great building” that the health partners had been looking to get out of for a while. She also emphasized that the organization plans an eventual return to Stowe.
“Our goal is — when we get through the consolidation and even talking about it now — we absolutely, positively don’t want to leave Stowe, but it is just a matter of our finances,” Bartlett said. “It’s the cost of everything, and we will begin a strategic plan immediately figuring out how to find a place in Stowe to have a presence for primary care, because we’ve been in that community forever and we don’t want to leave it.”
The move affects the six doctors currently employed at the Stowe practice, as well as a number of administrative staff. Bartlett said there may be some redundancies found in merging their Stowe and Morrisville offices, but said neighboring Copley Hospital and Lamoille Home Health and Hospice may have employment opportunities for anyone displaced in the move.
The Lamoille Health Pharmacy that occupies the same building as Stowe Family Practice will remain, for now. Pharmacies are more difficult to pick up and move, as their licenses are tied to their physical location, not a business entity, according to Bartlett. Opening a new pharmacy in the saturated market of Morrisville makes far less sense than continuing operations in Stowe, Bartlett added.
Last October, Lamoille Health Partners suddenly realized it was in dire financial straits. The nonprofit provides primary care, pediatric care, mental health care, substance abuse treatment and dental care to around 19,000 people throughout Lamoille County and the surrounding region, which Bartlett attributed primarily to the receding of post-pandemic federal funding.
As one of the state’s 11 federally qualified health centers, it is reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid at a higher rate than other health care providers, and low-income patients are also charged on a sliding scale.
Bartlett and the rest of the health partners’ board of directors have set a goal of trimming the organization’s budget by $2 million. By closing the Stowe practice, along with initially announced cuts like the closure of its Morrisville community center — the elimination of a position that oversaw the Lamoille Health Collaborative and the absence of upper administrative positions following the departure of their CEO and CFO — Bartlett said the organization is saving about $900,000 to $1 million.
Merger talks continue
Amid its financial crisis, Lamoille Health Partners turned to Copley Hospital for assistance in righting the ship long-term.
To that end, Copley put up the funding for a feasibility study that would help the two organizations work together in a mutually beneficial way that addresses both organizations’ needs, amid their differing attempts to find financial sustainability in the increasingly challenging rural health care landscape.
While a memorandum distributed among Copley employees in December signed by Bartlett and Copley Health Systems board chair Kathy Demars suggested a potential merger was on the table, Bartlett downplayed the idea at the time. Now it appears some conjoining of the two organizations is underway.
“We decided what we’re really looking at is a marriage here between equal partners,” Bartlett said.
To that end, the state of Vermont has also stepped in to help author a prenuptial agreement of sorts. DaShawn Groves, commissioner of the Department of Health Access, has been assisting in these discussions in order to ensure an accessible and sustainable health care system remains in Lamoille County.
“We want to make sure that the community continues to have access to primary care and that we are creating some sort of short-term stabilization and some long-term sustainability for those providers there,” Groves said.
Federally qualified health centers are unique entities that cannot be owned in a traditional sense, but the designation could act as an umbrella encompassing a combined Copley-health partners entity.
Copley CEO Joe Woodin previously oversaw the merger of a health center and hospital system, but both Bartlett and Groves characterized each health center as its own animal, even though all the state’s health centers and hospitals are facing the same difficult financial headwinds.
“I think what is happening in this county is kind of a microcosm of the broader issues that we’re facing in the state, around the world regarding access, financial stability and workforce,” Groves said. “This is really kind of an investment in primary care, and we see the two coming together not just for survival, but as a transformation, ensuring that providers can thrive in such a system.”
Woodin declined to comment on the ongoing merger discussions.
Groves and the state are also here to ensure that, whatever the final governance structure ends up being, it conforms to federal regulations handed down by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Bartlett still envisions an independent Lamoille Health Partners within a shared system.
“You’ve got two organizations who can share — we all have (human resources), we all have finance, we all have maintenance, so those are the sorts of things that you can combine,” Bartlett said. “You still definitely remain totally independent, separate entities with your own boards, and there might be a governing board of two people from each organization over the whole thing, but you’re still very independent organizations.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Lamoille Health Partners to close Stowe practice.