Chamber Hosts Hospital Meeting

Boone Hospital Trustees will be laying out their options for new hospital management when they come to Ashland next week.
The Trustees will hold a public meeting on Thursday, May 25 from 6-8 p.m. at the Southern Boone Elementary School library.
Boone Hospital is currently managed by BJC Health of St. Louis. Boone Hospital, owned by Boone County, is looking ahead at the contract with BJC which expires in 2020.
The Trustees have narrowed their choices to five: Stay with BJC under a new contract; Kansas City-based St. Luke’s Hospital; Duke LifePoint Health Care; University of Missouri Health Care or be a standalone operation.
At a similar meeting in Columbia on Wednesday, May 17, the Trustees told residents that BJC does not currently allow partnerships with physicians or joint ventures in which the hospital and the physicians share revenues. Boone Hospital is also not in the network for patients in the federal marketplace or in the network for university employees.
Former trustee Fred Parry favored the hospital breaking away from BJC when he was running for a seat on the Boone County Commission. Parry had said there were some benefits to partnering “in some areas” with University Health Care. However, Parry has not recently said which of the five options would be best for Boone Hospital.

The meeting will be hosted by the Southern Boone County Chamber of Commerce.