Henry County EMS Conversation on Hold?

The Henry County Health Center Board of Trustees is recommending the conversation with the County regarding Emergency Medical Services be put on hold. Tuesday the hospital board approved a letter to the County Supervisors that HCHC CEO Robb Gardner said recommends pausing the discussion between the hospital and the County on how to continue providing emergency medical services to county residents. Gardner said this would allow the supervisors to better evaluate the possibilities.  HCHC is being penalized for owning the ambulance service in terms of not receiving all the insurance reimbursement possible. That, in turn is seriously hurting the hospital’s bottom line. Originally, the hospital asked the County to consider taking ownership of the service but most recently the supervisors have proposed simply helping HCHC financially.  It has been discovered it’s not that simple but had appeared to be a better plan.  As of Tuesday this week the Supervisors were still waiting to hear from lawyers for both the hospital and the county regarding possible ballot wording in order to ask county residents to support a levy providing the funds for HCHC.  The letter from the HCHC Trustees will go immediately to the supervisors so that board can have it for the Thursday meeting.