Stonewall Memorial Hospital (SMH), the parent company of the medical clinics in Jayton and Spur, is interested in exploring home health and hospice services in this region.
The CEO/Administrator of the Aspermont-based hospital system, Andy Kolb, discussed this potential new initiative. “It’s all very preliminary, but we recognize the need in this area,” Kolb told The Texas Spur.
When Dallas-headquartered AccentCare acquired Dentonheadquartered Accolade Home Care and Hospice on Aug. 31, 2018, their agreement was that Accolade would maintain its brand and staff to continue serving more than 2,500 patients annually in the same service areas in which it operated.
One of Accolade’s service areas is Jayton. Accolade is still providing home health services in Jayton, but its storefront has closed. Accolade’s home health care staff is working from their residences in the greater Spur and Jayton areas.
With no storefront in Jayton, Encompass in Haskell is the nearest home health service to the Aspermont hospital. Stonewall Memorial would like to change that, and they are considering an offsite storefront in a location other than the hospital.
The SMH board has unanimously agreed for Kolb to present an official proposal regarding home health care and hospice.
In a story in the Double Mountain Chronicle, Kolb said he talked with the district’s auditors at BKD, who agreed, recommending the district consider a hospice care service as well.
Kolb also told the DMC that before expanding into home health, the district will need to create a separate board of directors to oversee the service. Additionally, Kolb said it could take the better part of eight months before the program starts getting payments on services rendered. With an off-site office, home health services would structurally be under the umbrella of the SMH District but would operate separately from the hospital, similar to the Aspermont nursing home.
Kolb told The Texas Spur that he has reached out to the Fisher County Hospital District to see if they would consider a joint operation of home health and hospice services.
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