Syringa severs contract with Cd'A hospital
Dec. 7—GRANGEVILLE — Following concerns from the Idaho Attorney General's Office about a managerial agreement between Syringa General Hospital at Grangeville and Kootenai Health, the Syringa board of trustees has decided to end the contract.
Syringa has remained autonomous since the 2017 alliance with the Coeur d'Alene hospital while Kootenai has provided hiring, education and training services as well as group purchasing benefits. But in 2020 when Kootenai bought St. Mary's Health, in Cottonwood, and Clearwater Valley Health, in Orofino, in an across-the-board exchange, there have been some worries among the Syringa medical staff about anti-competitive practices.
"Once (Kootenai) acquired St. Mary's it became difficult," said Leta Strauss of Grangeville, a hospital board member and former chairperson. Employees, particularly the medical staff, worried that "they could peer into our organization but we couldn't peer into theirs."
Strauss pointed out Syringa's board meetings are open to the public, while St. Mary's are not.
Lenne Bonner, chief executive officer for St. Mary's Health, said her hospital is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that is not required to have open meetings.
"We don't receive any tax dollars as a nonprofit and our board is volunteer, not elected," she said. "Because of county ownership and elected board directors and district taxing status, Syringa is required to have open meetings for taxpayers to be able to attend."
Strauss said the Syringa trustees do not look at St. Mary's as competition, "but we felt that it was probably time to extricate ourselves from that."
She added the agreement with Kootenai Health was somewhat controversial from the beginning. A couple of the board members, at the time the deal was finalized, resigned from the board because they disagreed with it.
In addition to local issues, Strauss said the attorney general's office and Federal Trade Commission have expressed reservations that elements of the managerial agreement posed a conflict of interest.
"(The attorney general's) concern is that we could do things that would decrease competition by being too collaborative," Strauss said. "So we decided maybe this wasn't the best thing for us to remain in this agreement. It doesn't mean we won't affiliate with somebody else."
Under Kootenai's direction, hospital Chief Executive Officer Abner King was recruited and hired to manage Syringa. Strauss said Syringa has been reimbursing Kootenai for King's salary but when the agreement ends Dec. 17 King will remain as Syringa's employee.
The alliance with Kootenai has provided some benefits to the Grangeville hospital, such as training, counseling, evaluation and purchasing. But Strauss said when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, all hospitals' resources were stressed and many of those services from Kootenai were cut back.
"A health care management will help with things you can't do on your own and that was what Kootenai was to us," she said. "But then we lost staff because of COVID and it turned out we weren't getting all that help (from Kootenai). In certain areas we were, but they weren't able to provide the same services as before. So, all in all, we just needed to get ourselves out of that and do something else."
Strauss said, in spite of the termination of the management agreement, Syringa will still be able to participate in a purchasing pool, which helps keep down costs for supplies. Syringa will also continue to be part of the Northwest Hospital Alliance that provides training services for all hospitals in northern Idaho.
Right now the hospital is in "kind of a flux," she said, while a few details about the arrangement are sorted out.
But there appear to be no hard feelings about severing the alliance with Kootenai Health that has been in effect for six years.
"Working with them I never felt like they were predatory toward us," she said. "They were trying to get a conglomerate of all north Idaho hospitals, so we were in an alliance. Because there are so many critical access hospitals (in Idaho) we're all in the same legal situation. So it was a good agreement.
"But if they hadn't gotten St. Mary's, (the severance) probably wouldn't have happened."
Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.
