PARIS, Tenn. (WTVF-TV) — In less than two months, women in Henry County and other nearby counties will have to go elsewhere for their pre-natal care and to deliver their babies.
That's because the Henry County Medical Center has announced that it will be closing its OB-GYN department September 1st.
The hospital says it was a very difficult decision, but they had no choice.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates recently traveled to Henry County to learn more about this announcement and how it will affect people there, especially women and babies.
We spent all day there, talking with everyone from hospital administrators and doctors, elected officials and moms-to-be, all stakeholders in what they say is a crisis in care.
When we met Lacy Crawford, she had some big news.
"This is the announcement!" she told us.
Lacy Crawford went on to explain, "We’re expecting baby number two. Baby number two is on the way."
But here's the problem, she has no idea where she will be able to deliver that baby when it's due in January.
"Does it scare you?" we asked.
"Yes! It terrifies me," she replied.
Her dilemma was prompted by another big announcement several weeks ago, this one by the Henry County Medical Center. As of September 1st, the hospital will no longer provide obstetrics care. It's shutting down its entire ob-gyn department.
Hospital CEO John Tucker told NewsChannel 5 Investigates, "We didn’t make this decision lightly and we wouldn’t have made this decision if there was any other alternative."
Tucker said it all boils down to money over medicine.
"When you’re in the business of taking care of people, you don’t like to think about the dollars and cents, but the service probably loses about $4.5 million a year and it’s just not $4.5 million dollars we have," Tucker explained.
And here's why.
During the pandemic, the number of babies born at the Henry County Medical Center dropped.
But the bigger problem is that 70% of the women who deliver at the hospital are on TennCare and most of them are enrolled in the BlueCross BlueShield program known as BlueCare.
But according to the hospital, BlueCare's reimbursement rate for delivering a baby and taking care of it after it's born is only a fraction of the actual cost, which means the hospital has to cover the rest.
"It’s more money than we have to be able to make up for that loss. We can’t do it. We did it. We did it forever. We took the low payment. We did it. They should thank us, right? Because we pulled our weight for 20 years. We cannot pull it anymore," longtime Henry County physician and Henry County Medical Center board member Dr. Scott Whitby said.
But hospital administrators and doctors in Henry County said cutting these services will cost lives, both mothers and their babies.
Dr. Pamela Evans, one of the obstetricians at the hospital, said, "It is heartbreaking."
Heartbreaking because this is the only hospital offering maternity and specialized neo-natal care in this part of western Tennessee.
The hospital serves not only Henry County but the five surrounding counties.
And the nearest hospitals with similar services are an hour away in Jackson or a more than two-hour drive to Nashville or Memphis
Dr. Eric Scott Palmer, one of the hospital's neonatologists explained it this way.
"We are in a profession where minutes matter, truly, truly matter, and the delay of healthcare, when a baby is inside of a mom, and something is going wrong, and that baby needs to be born, 30 minutes is (the difference between) life and death. Five minutes can be life and death. An hour? You can only imagine," Palmer said.
And not only will women have to go the distance to deliver, they'll also have to go that far to get pre-natal care.
Yet, many in this rural part of western Tennessee, especially those on TennCare, do not have cars or the money for gas to repeatedly make the long drive. And they don't have jobs where they can routinely take off an entire day to go to a doctor's appointment, meaning many women will likely not be seen regularly by a doctor before their babies are born.
Dr. Evans said, "And if our babies don’t get the best possible start, the downstream consequences of that, what their needs are in school, everything is impacted by that."
So how much money are we talking?
According to the hospital, BlueCare has been paying $1734 for a normal delivery and $335 for a healthy full-term baby. And those rates haven't changed since 2019.
But, we discovered that 14 years ago, back in 2009, the rates BlueCare paid for a standard delivery were actually higher by more than a thousand dollars.
BlueCross BlueShield told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that "BlueCare follows the (state's reimbursement) requirements to ensure our hospital rates fall within the (state's determined) range."
They also said, "Whenever we receive a rate request from a provider, we give it our full consideration."
But a month ago, the Henry County Medical Center asked BlueCross for a 500% rate increase. BlueCross said it's still considering that request.
In the meantime, we asked that new mom-to-be, "Do you understand what this is all about?"
Lacy Crawford told us, "It’s money. It’s all about money."
Then she continued, "I know money matters, however, so do lives."
BlueCross told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that it did not know the hospital's OB unit had hit such hard times financially and didn't learn that the hospital planned to close the department until the hospital made the public announcement in late May.
Both BlueCross and TennCare turned down our requests for an interview.
BlueCross, by the way, is the only TennCare provider at the Henry County Medical Center, but it's by far the largest. Interesting to note though, according to Henry County, is that one of the other providers pays the hospital three times what BlueCare pays for the same maternity services.
