The Bakken oil boom in western North Dakota -- with its massive equipment and its young, transient oil workers -- is puting tremendous strain on the region’s small hospitals that are finding it hard to shoulder the increasing emergency trauma load and the unpaid bills left behind it. John McChesney reports in the Daily Yonder that if that weren't enough, "Nurse and staff recruitments have become much more difficult due to high housing prices and high competitive wages in the oil patch. And attracting physicians, always a problem for rural areas, has gotten tougher, even as needs soar."
Randall Pederson, president and CEO of the 25-bed Tioga Medical Center and a regular ambulance volunteer, says his town has seen a dramatic leap in ambulance runs and emergency room patients this year. “In 2007 we would see 600 patients in ER per year,” Pederson told McChesney. “In 2012, we anticipate seeing over 2,000.” That means in a five-year period, Tioga’s emergency room visits have more than tripled.
“We are seeing a lot more industrial accidents, major trauma, many of those involving car accidents, because there’s a lot more vehicles on the roads these days,” Pederson explains. Many accidents involve 40-ton tank trucks colliding with 5,000-pound passenger cars, writes McChesney, "incidents that can bring several patients with horrible injuries into the small ER at the same time. The one doctor on call has to scramble for help."
According to Darrold Bertsch, president of North Dakota’s Rural Health Association, private insurers pay less in North Dakota than in most other states. And many of these ER patients -- many who come from out-of-state for piecemeal work -- don’t pay their bills. Tioga's Pederson in Tioga says his hospital had to write off $270,000 in bad debt. Other area hospitals report similar collection problems. McChesney reports that North Dakota's McKenzie County Hospital will lose more than half a million dollars this year because of patients' unpaid bills. Likewise, Montrail County Medical Center in Stanley, has 25 to 30 percent of revenue written off to bad debt. In Williston, Mercy Hospital’s bad debt has sky rocketed from a pre-oil-boom $2 million a year to $7 million this year, hardly something rural hospitals can endure for long. Mercy's CEO Matt Grimshaw says most of those charges have been billed to people who have jobs and could afford to pay, but he just can’t find them. Could Obamacare help here, with its mandate that everyone have insurance? In this red state, no one wanted to answer that question, McChesney reports. (Read more)
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| Randall Pederson of Tioga Medical holds piles of unpaid bills returned from addresses for people long gone. (Photo by John McChesney) |
According to Darrold Bertsch, president of North Dakota’s Rural Health Association, private insurers pay less in North Dakota than in most other states. And many of these ER patients -- many who come from out-of-state for piecemeal work -- don’t pay their bills. Tioga's Pederson in Tioga says his hospital had to write off $270,000 in bad debt. Other area hospitals report similar collection problems. McChesney reports that North Dakota's McKenzie County Hospital will lose more than half a million dollars this year because of patients' unpaid bills. Likewise, Montrail County Medical Center in Stanley, has 25 to 30 percent of revenue written off to bad debt. In Williston, Mercy Hospital’s bad debt has sky rocketed from a pre-oil-boom $2 million a year to $7 million this year, hardly something rural hospitals can endure for long. Mercy's CEO Matt Grimshaw says most of those charges have been billed to people who have jobs and could afford to pay, but he just can’t find them. Could Obamacare help here, with its mandate that everyone have insurance? In this red state, no one wanted to answer that question, McChesney reports. (Read more)
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