Brown Efforts will Help Protect Jobs and Ensure Patient Access to Health Care Services

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today announced that he helped Genesis Hospital – located in Zanesville– receive a new designation that will increase the federal resources available to the Muskingum County hospital that employs approximately 3,000 Ohioans. Brown worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to designate Genesis Hospital as a Sole Community Hospital (SCH) – this classification will allow the hospital to receive increased Medicare reimbursement, resulting in an additional $6 million per year for the hospital. Brown’s efforts will help Genesis maintain jobs and continue providing needed health care services to Ohioans.

“Today’s news will preserve jobs and allow Genesis Hospital to continue providing first-rate care to residents of Muskingum and surrounding counties,” Brown said. “I will continue to work to retain jobs in Zanesville and ensure that Ohioans throughout the state have access to local, quality health care.”

“Senator Brown and his staff have been engaged on finding a solution to our local challenge for nearly two years, and he has been a tireless supporter of the hospital," Matt Perry, CEO of Genesis said.

This SCH designation was so crucial to the hospital because, without it, Genesis was set to lose more than $6 million in annual Medicare reimbursements under a formula that measures wage rates for a metropolitan area.

SCH status is a special designation available to qualifying hospitals which are located more than 35 miles from other like hospitals, or located in a rural area and able to meet a number of specified criteria.  Genesis applied for this designation in October 2010 and earned SCH status as a rural hospital providing services to an underserved, rural Appalachian area of southeastern Ohio.  

Genesis Hospital provides care to a six county area including Muskingum County, Morgan County, Coshocton County, Guernsey County, Noble County, and Perry County. Located in Zanesville, Genesis currently operates as the largest rural referral center in Ohio.  One of the largest employers in the region, they employ approximately 3,000 people and provide life-saving, complex health care to over 250,000 Ohioans living in one of the most rural, Appalachian areas of the state with high poverty and unemployment rates.

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