HERMANN – Pulling together the necessary information, hiring the right people and getting in place to take the lead in delivering healthcare services to rural residents – that’s the work being done now by the Hermann Area District Hospital (HADH) administration as it become the center of a two-county effort to improve life for rural residents.

HADH Chief Executive Officer and Administrator Bill Hellebusch on Aug. 31 told the hospital’s Board of Directors that District 21, comprised of Gasconade and Osage counties, will have available $530,000 in federal money to help increase healthcare services to the residents of the counties.

As noted earlier, HADH has been named the Hub of District 21; that means the hospital will be the center of action regarding all aspects of providing healthcare services to Gasconade and Osage County residents. To achieve that goal, the statewide program will provide the two-county venture with two positions – a coordinator and a navigator – and the money to fund the positions.

As Hellebusch explained, the program coordinator will be based at HADH, responsible for connecting all the pieces of the healthcare system. The navigator will effectively float throughout the two counties, spending much of his or her time at the counties’ health departments. The navigator will be the person in direct contact with residents who need specific healthcare services. The navigator will be responsible for connecting residents with service providers, Hellebusch explained.

These positions will be busy, he said. “There’s going to be too much work to shake a stick at,” he told the board. “These navigators will be putting a lot of miles on their cars,” he added.

The legislation creating the program provides $115,000 for salary and expenses of the coordinator and $95,000 for salary and expenses of the navigator, Hellebusch said.]

Board President Dale Ridder said he is extremely pleased to see the program get off the ground. “The money for this is the money (U.S. Sen.) Josh Hawley set aside,” he said, referring to Missouri’s senior senator’s legislation that came in the wake of last year’s omnibus bill that cut federal funding for healthcare. Of particular concern is the impact of the cuts on rural healthcare and rural hospitals such as HADH.

Ridder said while he supported Hawley’s efforts, he was skeptical about seeing it come to fruition. “It’s a program I was afraid would never get here,” he said.

Hellebusch said a top priority of District 21 will be increasing residents’ access to doctors. “We definitely want to expand access to primary care,” he said.

Applications have been received and are being considered for the positions of coordinator and navigator, the administrator said.

In other matters, the hospital board set this year’s property tax rate at $0.9608 per $100 assessed valuation. This is the rate that will be applied to this year’s tax bill. It is projected to generate $1,742,818 in revenue. This year’s rate is slightly above last year’s rate of $0.9493. The property tax rates of public agencies, such as HADH, are reviewed and approved by the Missouri State Auditor’s Office and are calculated each year to produce about the same amount of revenue as the previous year, barring any voter-approved change in the rate.