The Samaritan logo, a familiar sight all over the mid-valley. (This one’s in North Albany.)
Samaritan Health Services may be cutting back on expenses, but it’s also looking to the future, and it sees part of that future in Millersburg. That’s according to a proposed three-way property-and-road agreement between the city of Millersburg, Samaritan and Linn County.
The Millersburg City Council unanimously approved the agreement in March. It’s a memorandum of understanding that outlines steps each of the three partners is to take. If all the steps are taken, the east end of Morningstar Road will be relocated to connect with Old Salem Road right across from where the Love’s truck stop is planned. The county board of commissioners has yet to act on the pact. Whether Samaritan has signed it, I don’t know.
The new alignment of Morningstar would allow better access to property Samaritan wants to acquire for what, according to the Jan. 10 minutes of the Millersburg council, was described as a “regional medical center.”
Everybody I talked to about this has been vague about the nature and timing of this venture. When I asked Samaritan CEO Larry Mullins about the Millersburg project, his response (on Friday) was an email that thanked me for asking and added: “We are always interested in exploring ways in which we can locate health and medical services where they can best serve our region.”
Under the agreement approved by Millersburg in March, the city will pay one-third (up to $125,000) and Samaritan two-thirds (up to $300,000) for the acquisition of a parcel fronting Old Salem Road, needed to reroute Morningstar Road. Linn County is to build the new alignment and then turn it over to the city’s jurisdiction.
Based in Corvallis, Samaritan runs a regional network of hospitals, clinics, senior-care centers and related facilities in Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties. Its service territory, which also covers portions of Polk and Marion counties, comprises about 290,000 residents. The not-for-profit enterprise had total revenue of $159 million and expenses of $160 million in 2014, the latest year for which the organization’s federal Form 990 (return for nontaxable entities) is available online. The numbers, however, apparently cover only a fraction of the operation, for the form lists only 1,074 Samaritan employees. A report in the Corvallis Gazette-Times on March 30 said Samaritan employs more than 5,500.
The G-T story reported that Samaritan had announced austerity measures including a hiring freeze and reductions on capital spending to help make up for a reduction in the number of Medicaid patients. No word on whether that has any effect on whatever Samaritan is envisioning in Millersburg. (hh)
I would prefer it were Kaiser Permanente.
There is nothing “Samaritan” about Samaritan Health! They’ve have become a gobbling up of medical services, solely profit driven, cost raising bunch! The doctor’s office I’ve dealt with for like 30 years embraced the Samaritan siren call about 10 years ago & up went the cost of services to me! Sure, they offer a medical office a “we do it all for you” plan the cost of which gets immediately passed on to me. Back when I was driving a CDL physical was $95. Then Samaritan stepped in with it’s services & the cost shot up to $315! Thankfully, my medical plan would pay for one wellness exam a year which covered some of the cost. When having radiation treatment a few years ago to have the required talk with the doctor for a mere 5 minutes once a week cost my medical plan $215 each time!!!!! No wonder our MODA Plan costs us close to $800 a month. Our Albany General Hospital was a great place until Samaritan gobbled it up!… JE
It appears that the Albany-Millersburg Regional Development Office has found Millersburg more friendly to new business opportunities. What’s wrong with Albany that Millersburg is on a roll while Albany dithers over Merry-go-rounds.
If we had a post office and a grocery store I would consider Millersburg a town. The proposed Love’s and Samaritan are not what we need here.
A few things, as we don’t know a whole lot ? 1. Who said it was a trauma center ? We don’t know what it is. If it was a full service Hospital with an ER, that would be great. We have no idea what it is. 2. It is non profit so they will pay no property taxes. 3. Why do tax payers need to help buy access land ? They are a huge multi million dollar operation, they can’t afford it themselves ? 4. Is the City (tax payers) going to pay for the access road ? 5. Are we as taxpayers going to do this for other/all businesses ? 6. Loves Truck Stop daily traffic is said to be 2300 cars and 600-700 trucks and now we are going to bottleneck dump hospital traffic at the exact same merging location ? Like I said, a Hospital with an ER would be a benefit to the community but we don’t know that. It could just be a lab or specialty facility.