ELY — A proposed federal designation change could have serious funding ramifications for this city’s primary medical care provider.
The Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital received notice Dec. 11 that federal authorities no longer consider the territory it serves to be rural, despite the facility being located in a city with fewer than 15,000 residents surrounded by remote lakes and forests.
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Hospital CEO Patti Banks said she was taken aback by the proposed status change, which could lead to the facility not being recognized as a critical access hospital.
It appears that the proposed change in Ely’s categorization arose from growth in the Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Statistical Area — casting a sprawling net that includes St. Louis and Carlton counties in Minnesota, as well as Douglas County, Wisconsin.
Banks said losing its status as a critical access hospital would jeopardize crucial supplemental reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid patients it serves.
She views the program as crucial, explaining, “It was enacted as a way to stop rural hospital closures and ... maintain access to care.
“It helps sustain us, so we can continue to provide health care, especially emergency services, for the people who live in our region, as well as for those who come to visit,” Banks said.
About 125,000 tourists per year visit the hospital’s service area, which includes portions of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, as Jodi Martin, the hospital’s communications and marketing team leader, noted.
If funding cuts occur, Banks said the facility may need to further scale back the level of services it provides. Already, those services are largely limited to emergency care and primarily outpatient procedures, with a sprinkling of short-term in-patient care cases.
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Banks said the hospital was given 60 days to appeal the decision and has filed the necessary paperwork with the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to seek a reevaluation. She said that 60% to 65% of patients served by the facility receive care with the help of Medicare or Medicaid coverage, which could be affected by the proposed designation change.
The nearest greater-sized medical facility to Ely is about 60 miles away in Virginia, with a still longer drive to Duluth.
Banks said the hospital also plays a larger role in the community, citing its efforts to promote vaccinations, provide educational outreach, fight food insecurity and address local child care needs.
“The impact goes beyond the medical services that we provide here,” she said, noting that the hospital also employs about 130 people.
Commissioner Paul McDonald of Ely, represents St. Louis County’s northernmost 4th District — its most sparsely populated and largest jurisdiction, geographically speaking.
He considers any effort to cast Ely as a metropolitan community to be nothing short of folly.
“If Ely’s not rural, there’s no place in the U.S. that is,” McDonald said.
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“I believe, and others believe, that some sort of error was made here, and hopefully, we can work with our congressional delegation to get it fixed,” he said.
McDonald said the risk of a miscategorization cannot be ignored, however, predicting the consequences of the facility losing its recognition as a critical access hospital could be “devastating.”
“I think and hope there’s a path forward, so we can get back to normal operations there,” McDonald said.
Rep. Pete Stauber wrote a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requesting that federal authorities reconsider their proposal.
In a statement, he said, “Not only is the decision to take away the Ely-Bloomenson Hospital’s critical access hospital designation based on a technicality that’s not accurate, but it would do significant harm to the Ely community.”
“Without this designation, hospital operations will be impacted, and many residents of this community will be forced to travel long distances to receive care. Our rural communities deserve better. So, I will continue to apply pressure on CMS to ensure this decision is reversed,” Stauber said.
McDonald said local officials have also reached out to enlist the support of Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tiina Smith on the issue in an effort to better educate federal authorities about the actual on-the-ground situation in Ely. He suggested that part of the misunderstanding may arise from St. Louis County’s sheer scale.
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“It seems that everybody who comes out here from the federal government is amazed by the size of St. Louis County,” McDonald said.”We’re very unique in a lot of ways up here in Northeastern Minnesota.”
Encompassing 6,860 square miles, St. Louis County is the largest U.S. county east of the Mississippi River.
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