Ballad Health is moving closer to becoming a reality.
The Virginia Department of Health announced Monday, Oct. 30, its approval of the Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA) submitted by Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System for the proposed merger of the two health systems.
VDH Commissioner Dr. Marissa Levine officially approved the COPA in a letter addressed to MSHA and Wellmont CEOs Alan Levine and Bart Hove.
In the letter provided to both CEOs, Dr. Levine stated, “I find a preponderance of the evidence that if the Applicants meet and comply with the Condition set forth in Attachment 2, the benefits likely to result from the proposed cooperative agreement outweighs the disadvantages likely to result from a reduction in competition from the proposed cooperative agreement.”
Mountain States issued a statement to the Elizabethton Star Tuesday morning about the decision, saying, “We are grateful for the diligence demonstrated by the Commissioner and her staff, and the staff of the Virginia Attorney General’s office. The Commissioner personally took the time to evaluate our proposed merger and to understand the reasons why the benefits of the proposed merger outweigh other options. We believe the Commissioner is committed to ensuring that the people of Southwest Virginia will be well served. We also applaud the Southwest Virginia Health Authority and its highly qualified consultants for their role in evaluating the benefits of the proposed merger as well as the improvements that were made to our commitments based on the Authority’s input. We look forward to working with the Commonwealth and the Authority to address the health care challenges of our region.”
The State of Tennessee made the first move two months ago with Commissioner Dr. John Dreyzehner approving the COPA.
“Health care is changing and evolving,” Mountain States President/CEO Alan Levine said following Tennessee’s decision at a press conference held in Johnson City. “When you talk to people about where they want to locate their businesses, where they want to leave or where they want to retire, they want a stable, capitalized healthcare system with doctors that can take care of them.”
Highlights from the COPA include the systems’ commitment to place $300 million worth of spending to benefit health in the region, including the creation of a residential addiction recovery campus to help address the drug epidemic in the area.
Another concern cited during a recent press conference was job loss. Levine added that the COPA indicated the rural hospitals are now able to see residents be terminated, without cause. An anticipated 250 jobs are expected to be lost in the short-term from an administrative standpoint, which is a vast decrease compared to an estimated 1,000 if the merger is not done locally, according to Levine.
MSHA added Tuesday that, “We are now intensely focused on the operational integration of the two systems and plan to close in the next few months.”