News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
CRMC’s Board of Trustees approved CEO Paul Korth to finalize and enter a letter of intent about a potential new orthopedic surgery center.
Korth said that the hospital would be a 20 percent owner of a new facility in a partnership with Tier One Surgery Center, LLC. He said that one of the main goals of this process is to recruit additional physicians to the area and provide care for more subspecialties.
“Anything we can do to help support that is a positive thing for the community,” Korth said. “This will give more accessibility for individuals in our community to have surgery, it frees up some of our OR time back at the medical center to do more complex cases that we would do.”
Korth said the facility would be located off of Jackson Street near Kohls. He said that the current cost estimate for the hospital is from $1 million to $3 million.
Korth said that the hospital would not be the owners of the building and assets itself, but in the operation of the surgery center itself.
“Some of the key agreements is we would have right of first refusal should they decide to sell anything outside of themselves physician wise,” Korth said. “The parties would also have a voting interest in all activities of the center, based upon our prorated share, the surgery center will enter into a management agreement, the surgery center is requested us to have a letter of support which we will also do. And then we will also have binding marketing, branding, and signage with the surgery center.”
Chief Legal Counsel Luke Hill said that the next step will be to have the Cookeville City Council consider and approve the letter of intent. He said that this approval is the first step of many toward making the project a reality.
In other business, the board also approved the budget for the fiscal year 2022-2023. CFO Tommye Rena Wells said that the operating revenues sit at some $376 million with operating expenses at $359 million.
The budget will go before Cookeville City Council.
