Rural Pennsylvania hospital launches $1.5m GoFundMe page

The hospital’s CEO said ‘lives will be lost’ if the hospital closes

Bucktail Medical Center may have to close due to insufficient funds (Bucktail Medical Center via GoFundMe)

An independent critical-access hospital in Pennsylvania has launched a GoFundMe page to raise $1.5m after concerns it may have to close.

Bucktail Medical Center set up the fundraiser after there was insufficient money to meet this Friday’s payroll.

The rural hospital has raised $11,710 from 67 donations so far.

“If you, as owners of the facility, want the hospital to survive, we need your donation today,” Timothy . Reeves, president and CEO of the Bucktail Medical Center wrote.

“Using the facility for your healthcare needs is just as important.

“If you live in any other rural area and you have healthcare available in your community, please pay attention. Your facility will be facing these same challenges soon.”

Mr Reeves said “lives will be lost” if the hospital closes.

He said he is cautiously optimistic about meeting the next payroll in two weeks. He said vendors, some of whom are not being paid on time, have been cooperative.

The Bucktail Medical Center CEO also said the hospital has been losing about $150,000 per month for the last year because costs exceed what insurers and state and federal reimbursements cover.

He said the 16-bed hospital averages one or two in-patients a day, but explained outpatient services are not being fully utilised.

“We’re throwing as many lines as we can,” Mr Reeves said. He told a community meeting Tuesday night that if they want the hospital to survive, it needs patients, Penn Live reported.

Mr Reeves said local, state and federal officials are working with the hospital on funding issues.

The hospital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2015 but emerged from it three years later.

Bucktail, one of three critical care hospitals in the state not owned by a health system, serves a very high population of Medicare and Medicaid patients, Mr Reeves said.

The next closest emergency room is 37 minutes away, while the next closest hospital with inpatient services is 50 minutes away.

Some 136 rural hospitals closed down in the US between 2010 and 2021, 19 of which closed in 2020.

The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR) said small rural hospitals are being forced to close because they are “not paid enough to cover the cost of delivering care to patients in rural areas”.