OAK PARK, Ill. (WLS) — As more details emerge surrounding the closure of West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, safety-net CEOs are telling the I-Team the outlook for health care providers who serve the most financially vulnerable patients is bleak. West Suburban’s closure is not a shock, but a surprise to other Chicago safety-net healthcare providers, including CommunityHealth’s CEO Stephanie Willding. ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch “Not shocking, but in the way in which it occurred and how quickly it occurred. Yes, it was very, very surprising,” said Willding who oversees the free, volunteer-based clinic specifically for the uninsured. “I think there’s a lot of safety-net providers, hospitals, federally qualified health centers that are experiencing financial crisis, and whether or not they’re on the brink of closure or scaling back services, but definitely having to make changes in order to keep their doors open and to keep serving the community.” It’s a perilous time for these providers, even if they can manage to end a year without debt. They often serve people with the lowest incomes in the city, those on Medicaid, or the uninsured, with some of the most complicated medical cases, which Willding stressed is a business model that is unsustainable in any case. “A health center, federal qualified health center, a safety-net hospital. They’re losing money on every visit,” Willding said. Willding said she expects it to become even more difficult when new work requirements for Medicaid go into effect next year. SEE ALSO | Secret meeting held to oust West Suburban CEO before hospital’s closure, warnings of dire situation “Hundreds of thousands of people losing their insurance, like, I’m seeing so much of my life’s work go backwards. We can anticipate that the challenges are actually just beginning,” she explained. As health care providers in Illinois are reacting to the surprise shuttering — there are more details about the financial chaos at West Suburban Medical Center. Payment and care issues were prevalent well before it closed its doors. A letter sent in January from Illinois Emergency Medicine Specialists and obtained by the I-Team is formal notice of contract breach, sent to Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad, the owner of West Suburban. IEMS contracts emergency medicine doctors to hospitals, including West Suburban. READ MORE | Pastors, community leaders call for West Suburban hospital to reopen under new leadership The letter stated Resilience Healthcare owed doctors more than $900,000, claiming, “Despite more than five prior written notices of breach, multiple extensions of time, and repeated opportunities to cure, the Hospitals have failed to remedy their payment defaults.” Humboldt Park Health CEO Jose Sanchez, who runs an anchor safety-net hospital in the community, told the I-Team the blame for any privately owned company’s closure lies at the feet of the owner. “If you decide that you’re going to be you are a capital investor, and you purchase a hospital, and then, yeah, you responsible to take care of everybody, regardless of their ability to pay. OK, you don’t have any choice. It’s not the government’s responsibility to assist you to keep that business going,” said Sanchez. CommunityHealth had just started a mammography partnership with West Suburban for clients in the Oak Park area and said they had to end that partnership without warning. Willding said if West Suburban does reopen, it will have to work to regain the trust of the communities it serves.
https://abc7chicago.com/post/safety-net-hospitals-peril-details-financial-chaos-west-suburban-medical-center-oak-park-illinois-emerge/18853980/