Healthmark Regional Medical Center reportedly fails to pay staff for weeks; ER remains closed

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — The emergency room at Healthmark Regional Medical Center, the only emergency room in the northern end of Walton County, remains closed 60 days after the hospital announced that the closure would last for only two weeks to one month.

In the meantime, the hospital itself has reportedly failed to pay its staff for the past three weeks. An anonymous email tip sent earlier this month to the Daily News noted that the hospital had not paid workers on their scheduled pay date of May 7, and other sources have indicated that the hospital continues to be unable to pay its staff.

Additionally, Medicare payments to the hospital have been suspended as the facility has failed to file a required report with the federal health insurance program that was due in February, according to a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

From March: Healthmark spokesman says patients can 'be seen just as easily' despite temporary ER closure

From 2021: Walton County Fire Rescue becomes first to earn EMS accreditation in Florida Panhandle

That report covers the entirety of the program's last fiscal year, from Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2021. Under the Medicare program, which provides health insurance to people 65 years of age and older, service providers like Healthmark Regional send claims directly to Medicare, which then reimburses the medical costs directly to them.

Repeated telephone calls to Healthmark Regional Medical Center over the last few weeks seeking comment on its reported difficulties have gone unanswered. The situation was no different Friday, as a morning phone call seeking comment from the hospital's chief operations officer or its marketing and public relations director had not been answered as of deadline for this story.

Healthmark Regional announced in March that it was closing its emergency room for renovations that are part of an ongoing upgrade to the 23-year-old hospital. The ER work is outside of a $5 million facility-funded initiative that has included the remodeling of its intensive care units, equipment and technology upgrades, the addition of a second operating room and the addition of an endoscopy suite to keep operating rooms available for other uses.

The announcement of the ER shutdown was accompanied by expressions of concern from Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson, who told the Walton County Board of County Commissioners at the time that the closure "will greatly affect transport times and the availability of ambulance services in the county."

As a result of the Healthmark Regional ER shutting down, Walton County Fire Rescue (WCFR) — which provides fire and emergency services north of Choctawhatchee Bay and has been part of the Sheriff's Office since 2017 — added a seventh ambulance to its service area in anticipation of longer transport times to other medical facilities, either in the southern end of Walton County or in other area counties, that would reduce the availability of emergency medical transportation in northern Walton County.

That seventh ambulance, which WCFR had planned to add to its fleet prior to the ER shutdown but was put into the fleet earlier than expected, remains in service in connection with the ongoing unavailability of the Healthmark emergency room, Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Corey Dobridnia said Friday.

While WCFR is continuing to work to mitigate the affect of the emergency room shutdown on medical care in the northern end of Walton County, the ongoing unavailability of the facility has proven the utility of a relatively new WCFR initiative.

About a year ago, the county began what it is calling the Community Paramedicine Program, Dobridnia explained. Currently staffed with just one paramedic, the program provides what is, in essence, a house call for people who call for an ambulance but may not need to be transported to a medical facility.

The community paramedic can provide a number of basic medical services, including giving medication, Dobridnia said. That can mean that an ambulance, rather than being tied up in transporting someone to a medical facility for a relatively minor reason, can remain available for more critical emergency needs.

Currently, ambulances are dispatched to every emergency medical call made to Walton County Fire Rescue, but that could change as the Community Paramedicine program matures, according to Dobridnia. At some point, she said, it's possible that dispatchers will work to determine whether an emergency call needs an ambulance response, or whether a community paramedic could handle the situation.

The county has been advertising for a second community paramedic. The job posting, seeking a paramedic with at least three years of continuous full-time career service, includes extending "access to health services in the underserved and general populations" of the county as part of the job description.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Healthmark Regional reportedly fails to pay staff; ER stays closed