Message from Bayou Bend: No risk of closure

Parish Councilwoman Dr. Kristi Prejeant Rink relayed a message from Bayou Bend Health System to the council Wednesday: The Franklin hospital is in no danger of closure from Medicaid cuts.
Rink spoke at a Parish Council meeting and said she was repeating a message from Bayou Bend CEO Stephanie Guidry.
The message was that “there is no immediate risk of Bayou Bend closing,” Rink said.
The Review reported July 4 that Bayou Bend and Morgan City’s Ochsner St. Mary appeared on a list of at-risk hospitals developed by the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina.
The research was performed at the request of four Democratic senators as Congress debated provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which was signed by President Donald Trump on July 4.
The research identified hundreds of rural hospitals as being at risk of closure, including 33 in Louisiana.
The research deemed hospitals to be at risk if they had been unprofitable for at least three straight years or they are among the 10% of hospitals that rely most on Medicaid for funding.
Neither of the St. Mary hospitals fell below the profitability standard. But both were among the 10% most reliant on Medicaid, the state-federal program providing coverage to the needy, disabled and elderly.
Hospitals that rely most on Medicaid tend to be the least profitable, Shep Center directors wrote to the senators.
“Substantial cuts in Medicaid or Medicare payments could increase the number of unprofitable rural hospitals and elevate the risk of financial distress,” they wrote.
Peter November, CEO of Ochsner Health, joined other health care executives in a letter warning of financial consequences for hospitals because of cuts in the legislation.
The biggest impact on hospital finances is likely to be new limits on the taxes health care providers pay to fund Medicaid.
Rink, a general surgeon whose appointment to the Bayou Bend staff was announced last week, noted Wednesday that the limits don’t take effect until 2028.
She said Bayou Bend’s management has assured hospital staff that the hospital is in no danger of closing.
Leaders of the Sheps Center told the senators that rural hospitals were under financial pressure even before the Medicaid cuts were contemplated.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says 81 rural hospitals closed 2005-23.
Another 65 downsized their operations.
Closures and conversions dropped from 15 in 2020 to one in 2021, but rose to nine in 2023.