New $33M hospital planned for Columbus would fill this critical need, application says
A new hospital is being planned for Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley to fill what statistics show to be a critical gap in physical rehabilitation services.
Piedmont Healthcare of Atlanta and Encompass Health (previously named HealthSouth) of Birmingham have formed a joint venture called Rehabilitation Hospital of Columbus, a limited liability corporation.
The proposed facility would be constructed on the 16-acre undeveloped parcel at 8301 Veterans Parkway, with a project cost estimate of $33.8 million, according to the application for the certificate of need.
The hospital would comprise 40 beds: 11 new beds and 29 existing beds relocated from Piedmont Columbus Regional’s Northside campus, according to the application.
The request for the certificate of need was filed Nov. 17. The Georgia Department of Community Health’s tracking report shows March 16 is the deadline to decide whether to approve it.
Christine MacEwen, executive director of corporate development for Piedmont, is listed as the contact person on the application. She referred the Ledger-Enquirer’s questions to PCR spokeswoman Jessica Roberts, who declined comment, citing the proposal’s pending status.
Encompass Health owns the property at Veterans Parkway, according to the application. Muscogee County real estate records show the mortgage is held by Synovus Bank, which received the security deed April 30 from Old Guard for $3,022,570. Old Guard bought the land from Synovus Trust Company in 2007 for $3,371,900.
Need for the hospital
The facility’s service area comprises seven counties: Muscogee, Harris, Chattahoochee, Marion, Stewart, Talbot and Taylor. Piedmont’s Northside campus offers the only comprehensive inpatient physical rehabilitation program in the service area, according to the application. CIPR is the healthcare industry’s term for the program.
Offered as evidence of the need for this CIPR project, the application says Piedmont Northside is “operating literally at capacity many days of the year,” resulting in an average annual occupancy of 94% in 2019 and 94.7% in 2020.
As a result, the application says, Piedmont Northside was “unable to admit 101 patients in need of CIPR services solely because there was not a bed available” from July 2019 to October 2020. During the same period, 159 patients in need of the same care “were admitted to a less intensive post-acute setting.”
The shortage of CIPR beds, the application says, also means Piedmont had patients at its two Columbus hospitals “remain in their general acute care beds an excess 4,396 days, an average of 2.7 excess days per CIPR-discharged patient.”
And that, the application says, means “patients in need of general acute care beds are also unnecessarily delayed in receiving needed care.”
Piedmont Northside’s CIPR unit has been operating at or above the Georgia Department of Community Health’s 85% occupancy standard since 2016, rising each year to 94% in 2019, according to the application. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the occupancy in Piedmont Northside’s CIPR unit has continued to increase, averaging 94.7% during the first nine months of 2020.
Other alternatives
Patients are traveling out of state to receive CIPR care because the closest facility providing these services in Georgia’s CIPR Planning Area 3 is “more than 60 miles from the proposed project,” the application says.
That facility is Pheobe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, but it hasn’t reported having any CIPR patients “for at least two calendar years,” the application says. The next closest is Phoebe Putney in Albany, 90 miles away.
But the Columbus area does have another facility providing CIPR services — across the Chattahoochee River in Phenix City, where Piedmont and Encompass jointly own the 58-bed Regional Rehabilitation Hospital, less than 10 miles from Piedmont Northside.
The number of Regional Rehabilitation Hospital patients coming from the seven-county Columbus service area in Georgia has increased from 422 in 2014 to 666 in 2019, according to the application.
About Encompass and Piedmont
Encompass Health owns and operates three CIPR hospitals in Georgia, one each in Savannah, Newnan and Augusta. Encompass Health also has received state approval for two other CIPR hospitals that aren’t operational yet, one each in Henry County and Forsyth.
In total, Encompass Health has 136 CIPR hospitals in 35 states and Puerto Rico, according the application, calling it the “nation’s leading owner and operator of inpatient rehab hospitals.” Combined with its home health and hospice services, Encompass Health has more than 400 locations in 39 states and Puerto Rico, according to its website.
Piedmont has approximately 800 locations serving 2.5 million patients across Georgia, according to its website. That includes 11 hospitals, 27 urgent care centers, 34 quick care centers and 555 clinics.
The partnership between Piedmont and Encompass promises “access for all patients in need, with an indigent and charity care commitment of 3% annually of adjusted gross revenues,” the application says.
This story was originally published January 12, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
