Carson-Tahoe is Asset for Rural Hospital Organization

As Carson-Tahoe Hospital searches for an affiliate, it maintains membership in the Nevada Rural Hospital Project, a nonprofit organization that encourages cooperation between rural hospitals in Nevada for services such as liability and health insurance and workers' compensation.

Generally, rural hospitals in Nevada have not been absorbed into larger organizations. Only four of the 13 rural hospitals in Nevada have gone with some type of affiliation.

Elko, Fallon, and Incline Village hospitals are operated by separate entities and Lovelock is affiliated through a management relationship with Fallon, according to Bill Welch, chief executive officer of the Nevada Hospital Association.

To qualify for membership hospitals must be nonprofit. Should Carson-Tahoe relinquish its nonprofit status during an affiliation process, it must end its relationship with the Hospital Project.

Together, these hospitals negotiate reduced prices for laboratory services, teleradiology, managed care and more.

Carson-Tahoe Hospital Chief Executive Officer Steve Smith said the organization also helps with lobbying efforts and contract negotiations. Together, these hospitals employ the services of one reference lab, Associated Pathologists Laboratories, at a reduced rate.

The new State Health Information Network of Nevada, to be used statewide some time within the next two years, would have cost each hospital $25,000. But under the program, all rural hospitals will be incorporated into the system for just $24,000.

As the largest member of the organization, Carson-Tahoe is an asset.

"We benefit from their numbers," program associate Grant Assy said, noting that with 128 beds, Carson-Tahoe gives the group leverage to bargain for better rate reductions for services.

In services and size Carson-Tahoe falls somewhere between a rural and urban hospital, and as such its challenges differ from most rural hospitals.

Smith said the hospital is rural because it still gets grassroots support from the community.

On the down side, urban hospitals are reimbursed for Medicare at a higher rate, based on the assumption that overhead for urban hospitals is higher.

"Half of our business is Medicare," Smith said.