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Officials from NCMC Inc. rejected a suggestion from their Fort Collins-based competitor that the two cooperate to build an emergency department in west Greeley, and they blasted Poudre Valley Health System CEO Rulon Stacey for trying to poach patients from west Greeley.
“He’s trying to strip mine as many insurance cards out of the 80634 zip code as he possibly can,” NCMC Inc. board executive officer Ken Schultz said. “Our hospital, as a charity, we rely on those high-end patients that have those insurance cards. If he strip mines this layer out, we are going to be left holding the bag.”
During an hour-and-a-half long interview with The Tribune this week, NCMC Inc. board chairman Al Dominguez, Schultz and NCMC CEO Rick Sutton expressed growing frustration with Fort Collins-based PVHS and released correspondence between the two systems detailing past attempts to cooperate.
PVHS spokesman Kevin Darst said the health system didn’t want to negotiate in the media, but he said PVHS’s plans for a stand-alone west Greeley emergency department and surgery center will move ahead.
“The offer still stands to sit down and meet with them,” he said. “We see a need. We’re trying to address a need for service. That’s what we’re trying to do. It would be great if we could work together on it.”
Darst said both health systems have interest in west Greeley. He said it’s unfair to accuse PVHS of strip mining the area, noting that NCMC and Banner have also made moves in the area.
“Everybody agrees that this is where the growth is, and that growth will bring demand for services,” he said. “They’ve bought a lot of property in west Greeley. They obviously think there’s going to be a lot of demand out there, either now or in the near future.”
Last year, Banner Health and NCMC together bought 12 acres of land at the former Hewlett-Packard site for $2.34 million, and 88 acres near Boomerang Golf Links at 10th Street and 71st Avenue for $4.5 million.
Phoenix-based Banner, which owns McKee Medical Center in Loveland, operates NCMC as part of a long-term operating agreement with NCMC Inc., which owns the hospital. Banner will operate the new emergency department in a building owned by NCMC Inc. PVHS owns Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and operates Loveland’s Medical Center of the Rockies in partnership with Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Neb.
Since at least 2007 when MCR opened, the two systems have had a complex — and at times rocky — relationship. Both sides have accused the other of duplicating services and contributing to rising costs for patients in northern Colorado. PVHS has accused Banner of alienating Greeley physicians, while NCMC contends it works well with local doctors and has accused PVHS of using its operating agreement with Greeley Medical Clinic to pull patients out of Greeley.
Since 2009, the number of patients admitted to NCMC by GMC doctors fell 42 percent from 24,650 to 14,367 in 2011, according to numbers provided by NCMC, Inc. officials. GMC began its operating agreement with PVHS in 2010.
The most recent flash point came last month when Banner announced it planned to open an emergency department in the Summit View Medical Commons, 70th Avenue and 20th Street, in part as a reaction to an announcement last year that PVHS planned to build its own emergency department near 10th Street and 71st Avenue.
After Banner’s announcement, PVHS officials called the decision a costly duplication of services and publicly invited NCMC Inc. board members to meet.
Schultz said he received a letter a from PVHS CEO Rulon Stacey in 2010 seeking a meeting to discuss unspecified regional cooperation, but the two systems have never had any talks about working together on an emergency department.
In the letter, dated April 22, 2010, Stacey invited NCMC Inc. board members to a meeting with PVHS board members and members of the Greeley Medical Clinic board. The letter did not invite Banner officials, which Schultz said was a problem.
“We’re in violation of our contract if we do anything like this,” Schultz said. He also said it would have been inappropriate to include GMC board members because GMC had recently signed an operating agreement with PVHS, and it was too early in the process to bring in physicians.
Darst said it is PVHS’s preference not to include Banner in the meeting. He did not say why Banner wasn’t invited.
He also said it simply made sense to include doctors in conversations about working together in Greeley.
“It’s not just GMC,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, we’d like community physicians that would be involved in providing care over there to be at the table so that we could include them as a stakeholder in what we’re going to do there. They’ll be the ones providing the service so that would seem to make sense.”
The two systems have tried before to work out a way to cooperate. About 10 years ago, the two met to discuss operating a hospital at Interstate 25 and U.S. 34. With no records kept, it’s impossible to piece together a full accounting of what was discussed and when. However, Dominguez said he was present at a meeting at Water Valley with PVHS officials about 10 years ago. He said the two groups discussed working together in general terms, but couldn’t agree to anything.
“The bottom line for Rulon and the PVH board was whatever we do, we want to have 51 percent of control,” Dominguez said. “We said there is no way that we are going to give anyone 51 percent control of anything.”
Darst said PVHS isn’t focused on looking back.
“Poudre Valley Health System is focused on serving the Greeley and Weld County community now and in the future,” he said in an email. “It doesn’t benefit the community to dwell on recollections of conversations from a decade ago.”
“He’s trying to strip mine as many insurance cards out of the 80634 zip code as he possibly can,” NCMC Inc. board executive officer Ken Schultz said. “Our hospital, as a charity, we rely on those high-end patients that have those insurance cards. If he strip mines this layer out, we are going to be left holding the bag.”
During an hour-and-a-half long interview with The Tribune this week, NCMC Inc. board chairman Al Dominguez, Schultz and NCMC CEO Rick Sutton expressed growing frustration with Fort Collins-based PVHS and released correspondence between the two systems detailing past attempts to cooperate.
PVHS spokesman Kevin Darst said the health system didn’t want to negotiate in the media, but he said PVHS’s plans for a stand-alone west Greeley emergency department and surgery center will move ahead.
“The offer still stands to sit down and meet with them,” he said. “We see a need. We’re trying to address a need for service. That’s what we’re trying to do. It would be great if we could work together on it.”
Darst said both health systems have interest in west Greeley. He said it’s unfair to accuse PVHS of strip mining the area, noting that NCMC and Banner have also made moves in the area.
“Everybody agrees that this is where the growth is, and that growth will bring demand for services,” he said. “They’ve bought a lot of property in west Greeley. They obviously think there’s going to be a lot of demand out there, either now or in the near future.”
Last year, Banner Health and NCMC together bought 12 acres of land at the former Hewlett-Packard site for $2.34 million, and 88 acres near Boomerang Golf Links at 10th Street and 71st Avenue for $4.5 million.
Phoenix-based Banner, which owns McKee Medical Center in Loveland, operates NCMC as part of a long-term operating agreement with NCMC Inc., which owns the hospital. Banner will operate the new emergency department in a building owned by NCMC Inc. PVHS owns Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and operates Loveland’s Medical Center of the Rockies in partnership with Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Neb.
Since at least 2007 when MCR opened, the two systems have had a complex — and at times rocky — relationship. Both sides have accused the other of duplicating services and contributing to rising costs for patients in northern Colorado. PVHS has accused Banner of alienating Greeley physicians, while NCMC contends it works well with local doctors and has accused PVHS of using its operating agreement with Greeley Medical Clinic to pull patients out of Greeley.
Since 2009, the number of patients admitted to NCMC by GMC doctors fell 42 percent from 24,650 to 14,367 in 2011, according to numbers provided by NCMC, Inc. officials. GMC began its operating agreement with PVHS in 2010.
The most recent flash point came last month when Banner announced it planned to open an emergency department in the Summit View Medical Commons, 70th Avenue and 20th Street, in part as a reaction to an announcement last year that PVHS planned to build its own emergency department near 10th Street and 71st Avenue.
After Banner’s announcement, PVHS officials called the decision a costly duplication of services and publicly invited NCMC Inc. board members to meet.
Schultz said he received a letter a from PVHS CEO Rulon Stacey in 2010 seeking a meeting to discuss unspecified regional cooperation, but the two systems have never had any talks about working together on an emergency department.
In the letter, dated April 22, 2010, Stacey invited NCMC Inc. board members to a meeting with PVHS board members and members of the Greeley Medical Clinic board. The letter did not invite Banner officials, which Schultz said was a problem.
“We’re in violation of our contract if we do anything like this,” Schultz said. He also said it would have been inappropriate to include GMC board members because GMC had recently signed an operating agreement with PVHS, and it was too early in the process to bring in physicians.
Darst said it is PVHS’s preference not to include Banner in the meeting. He did not say why Banner wasn’t invited.
He also said it simply made sense to include doctors in conversations about working together in Greeley.
“It’s not just GMC,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, we’d like community physicians that would be involved in providing care over there to be at the table so that we could include them as a stakeholder in what we’re going to do there. They’ll be the ones providing the service so that would seem to make sense.”
The two systems have tried before to work out a way to cooperate. About 10 years ago, the two met to discuss operating a hospital at Interstate 25 and U.S. 34. With no records kept, it’s impossible to piece together a full accounting of what was discussed and when. However, Dominguez said he was present at a meeting at Water Valley with PVHS officials about 10 years ago. He said the two groups discussed working together in general terms, but couldn’t agree to anything.
“The bottom line for Rulon and the PVH board was whatever we do, we want to have 51 percent of control,” Dominguez said. “We said there is no way that we are going to give anyone 51 percent control of anything.”
Darst said PVHS isn’t focused on looking back.
“Poudre Valley Health System is focused on serving the Greeley and Weld County community now and in the future,” he said in an email. “It doesn’t benefit the community to dwell on recollections of conversations from a decade ago.”
Correspondence
Here’s a look at letters between Poudre Valley Health System CEO Rulon Stacey and two NCMC Inc. board members, the two released this week:
» April 22, 2010: Rulon Stacey writes to NCMC Inc. Board executive officer Ken Schultz, inviting the executive committee of the NCMC board to meet with PVHS board members and Greeley Medical Clinic board members. In the letter, Stacey denies that PVHS is engaged in an effort to pull patients out of Greeley and calls for a meeting to discuss cooperation. He did not invite Banner Health, which operates NCMC as part of an agreement with NCMC Inc. » May 31, 2010: Schultz accepts Stacey’s offer to meet, but insists that Banner be involved. The letter also states that it’s too early to in the process to include GMC. » NCMC CEO Rick Sutton sends an undated letter to hospital staff and the media detailing his view of the competitive relationship between the two health systems. In the letter, Sutton says PVHS wants to drive Banner out of Weld County. » Nov. 5, 2010: In a letter addressed to Schultz, Stacey replies to Sutton’s letter. He calls the letter factually inaccurate, and says Sutton misrepresented his opinions or drew inaccurate or misleading conclusions. » Jan. 3, 2011: Schultz reiterates the need to include Banner at the meeting. » Jan. 25, 2012: After reading about Banner’s plans for its own west Greeley emergency department in The Tribune, Stacey writes to NCMC Inc. board chairman Al Dominuguez and renews his offer to work together. However, he maintains Banner officials are not welcome. To see the letters in full, go to www.greeleytribune and click on this story. |
