Effingham Health to Become Nonprofit Organization

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SPRINGFIELD, Ga. — Effingham Health System in Springfield announced that it will reorganize to become a nonprofit organization. A public hearing on the change will take place on July 5, and the reorganization is expected to happen by October.

The existing hospital authority board will run the nonprofit. The plan will help the system expand and add additional services and clinics beyond Effingham County by the end of the year, according to Business in Savannah. The expansion will include Effingham Cares, a self-insurance plan for the health system, oncology services and a chemotherapy suite that will hold up to seven patients.

“It’s going to give us an opportunity to expand the capabilities and the service to the community around us,” said Rick Rafter, hospital authority chairman, to county representatives and legislators late last month.

The insurance program will be locally directed and competitively priced and will benefit the community in many ways, according to Business in Savannah. This includes getting employees back to work quicker, keeping physicians in the community, expanding local services, improving the local employer base cost structure and leveraging as a model to attract prospective employers. Local employers will also see the benefits of the new health system, as it will allow their company to set up a flexible benefit plan. It will also include aggressive pricing for tertiary services at nearby Savannah Hospital, St. Joseph’s/Candler.

Under the health system’s new plan, it will be able to set up clinics outside of Effingham County so that patients from nearby counties will be able to be treated closer to home, Effingham Health System CEO Norma Jean Morgan told Business in Savannah. The new system will focus more on the service provided to the patients.

The reorganization will also provide the hospital with new ways to make money, according to Business in Savannah. The health system would be able to build new buildings to use for physicians offices and clinics that would allow the opportunity of shared ownership of the building. Effingham Hospital is already in stable financial shape and was $100,000 in the black last year, despite $12 million in uncompensated care each year, Earl Rogers, president of Georgia Hospital Association, told Business in Savannah.

The hospital is in a much better financial situation than many of the rural hospitals in the area because the county gives the hospital $3.6 million in tax money annually, so creating the nonprofit will help the rural hospitals. A new bill will allow people and corporations to receive tax credits for donations to rural hospitals and health care organizations, which will help Effingham Health System’s bottom line.