Dear Editor:

The deadline for submitting your input is 5 p.m. on January 22, 2014.

Please take a few minutes to let the regulators in Maine’s Dept. of Health and Human Services know whether you feel that they should retroactively approve the merger between St. Andrews and Miles. In order to approve this merger, the state needs to determine whether the new merged entity, LincolnHealth, meets six criteria. So, it would be most effective if you could target your remarks to fit into one or more of these categories and use specific examples:

1. Fit, willing and able: Are they fit, willing and able to serve our community? If not, why not? What evidence do you have?

2. Financial feasibility: Can they afford to do this merger? Will it increase our costs? Will it increase their costs to provide us with service? Will it increase the cost of healthcare to patients and insurers? What about the costs to provide additional beds in a new facility (e.g. new wing at Gregory Wing) instead of a) using the beds they already have at Miles or b) using the beds they had at St. Andrews.

3. Public need, access to needed services: What are all the ways this merger reduces our access to services?

4. Orderly and economic development: What are all the ways this merger diminishes economic development rather than enhancing it?

5. Outcomes and community impact: How have patient outcomes gotten worse? Who has had negative health outcomes since the merger in 2008, or the one on October 1, 2013 because of the merger?

6. Service utilization: Will more people use more of the services of the merged hospitals? Or fewer? If utilization was so low that services had to be removed, why do we think we would use St. Andrews if it weren’t merged into Miles?

Please email your testimony to: larry.carbonneau@maine.gov and cc: pseybold@customers.com so that we can quote from your remarks in our summary rebuttal. Or call me if you’d like help crafting your message: 207-633-4368.

Patty Seybold, Boothbay
Board of Directors President
Boothbay Region Health & Wellness Foundation