Monday, March 3, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The 12 facilities have managed to stay open despite dire predictions to the contrary, bucking a national trend in which more than 400 rural hospitals closed between 1980 and 1994.
Elko General Hospital is so profitable that at least seven corporations are interested in buying it. Lovelock's Pershing General Hospital posted a profit last year for the first time in years.
Administrators attributed the financial rebound to a variety of factors, notably a stronger rural economy stemming from new mines and prisons.
"We're in a better situation because the economy's better in this area," Pershing General Administrator Helen Woolley told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
"Wherever the communities are doing the best, that's where you'll find the hospital doing the best," added Jack Wood, administrator of William B. Ririe Hospital in Ely.
The Gazette-Journal reported the improvement also stems from increased financial support from rural residents and greater cooperation among rural administrators.
The collaboration has resulted in several cost-cutting moves, including a self-funded liability insurance pool and a single contract for preventive maintenance on large equipment.
Rural hospitals "have grown up to recognize that we, as a collective group, have a good bargaining basis," said Bill Welch, president of the Nevada Rural Hospital Project, which represents the 12 hospitals.
Welch said he's convinced rural hospitals must work together to remain solvent in an era of managed care discounts, and Medicare and Medicaid reform.
Despite the greater financial stability, administrators acknowledge much needs to be done to improve the health of rural residents.
Women still must drive hundreds of miles to deliver babies because many rural hospitals can't afford the liability of offering obstetrics.
Rural Nevadans still have few primary care doctors, and four counties -- Pershing, Storey, Eureka and Esmeralda -- have no doctors.
Administrators said recruitment of new physicians is getting tougher as large managed care corporations snatch them up, offering salaries that small towns can't match.
The 12 rural hospitals serve about 250,000 residents over 93,000 square miles.
archive
