Muskegon acute care health facility to close this month

Muskegon acute care health facility to close this month

MUSKEGON — A long-term acute care provider that for years leased space at Mercy Health’s Hackley Hospital campus plans to close its Muskegon location by the end of the month.

The planned closing of the 31-bed Select Specialty Hospital – Muskegon, formerly Great Lakes Specialty Hospital, occurs as Mercy Health Muskegon transitions and consolidates inpatient care at the Mercy campus on Sherman Boulevard. 

Mercy Health “cannot accommodate our space needs in the new location,” Shelly Eckenroth, senior vice president for communications at Pennsylvania-based Select Medical Corp., wrote in an email to MiBiz.

Mercy Health Muskegon is reducing capacity from 408 to 267 beds once the inpatient care consolidation at the Mercy campus is complete this month.

Select Medical provides long-term care and outpatient rehabilitation. The corporation often leases space from hospitals for long-term acute care centers, or LTAC, that treat patients who require continued care for a serious illness or injury after their initial hospitalization.

Select Medical will close Select Specialty Hospital – Muskegon by Oct. 31, according to a layoff notice filed this week with the state. The layoff will affect 81 employees, the notice states.

“We hope to accomplish this closing with the least possible disruption to the lives of our employees and the community,” states the letter notifying the state of the planned closing.

Select Medical patients who remain in Muskegon will transfer to other care centers or the 36-bed Select Specialty Hospital at Spectrum Health’s Blodgett Hospital campus in East Grand Rapids.

“In the coming weeks, all patients of Select Specialty Hospital – Muskegon will either be safely discharged, transitioned to a lower level of care, or transported to Select Specialty Hospital – Spectrum Health,” Eckenroth said.

Select Medical operates 101 critical illness recovery hospitals in 28 states, 29 rehabilitation hospitals in 12 states, and 1,757 outpatient rehabilitation clinics in 37 states and the District of Columbia. The corporation (NYSE: SEM) recorded $2.64 billion in operating revenue in the first six months of 2020 with $137.9 million in net income.

Specialty Hospital – Muskegon in 2019 recorded 303 patient discharges with an average daily occupancy rate of 66.1 percent and a 24.7-day average length of stay, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.