Greenwood Leflore Hospital will remain open while the University of Mississippi Medical Center takes over operations after a Hinds County chancery court judge ordered the Mississippi Division of Medicaid to continue making a $2.4 million payment.
The hospital had said earlier this month that it could be forced to close immediately after DOM threatened to withhold the funds, which come from the Mississippi Hospital Access Program—a program designed to help ailing rural hospitals.
GLH, which is located in Greenwood, Mississippi, filed for bankruptcy protection in April while in the midst of negotiations with the University of Mississippi Medical Center for the takeover. The Institutions for Higher Learning Board of Trustees earlier this month unanimously approved a proposal to receive GLH’s main campus as a donation, at no cost to UMMC.
That could take several months to complete, though, and DOM’s sudden effort to halt Medicaid payments threatened to derail the entire effort to save the hospital.
“In the event GLH were to close, it would negatively impact a core foundation of any transaction with a larger system,” Gary Marchand, a GLH consultant and its former interim CEO, said in a statement to the Mississippi Free Press after DOM sought to halt the payments. “The result is the inability to bill DOM for services provided to Medicaid recipients in future months. Any new operator would have to be re-credentialed to provide services to Medicaid recipients and this process could take six months or more.”
Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Dewayne Thomas ordered the Mississippi Division of Medicaid to make Greenwood Leflore Hospital’s June MHAP payment by Tuesday, June 30—the same day the hospital system had warned it would be forced to close without the $2.4 million payment. The Greenwood Commonwealth first reported on the judge’s order.
GLH serves a population of roughly 25,000 people, about 75% of whom are Black. The nearest hospital is 30 miles north in Grenada, which is also a UMMC affiliate.
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