Hillcrest Family Services to continue Mt. Pleasant program

Hillcrest Family Services in Mt. Pleasant will remain open after the board reversed their decision made earlier this year to eliminate the program.

The Hillcrest Family Services board voted on March 7, to close the Mt. Pleasant facility along with eliminating six other programs in Dubuque, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, saying the programs are not financially sustainable. Since then, Henry County residents and employees of the Mt. Pleasant Hillcrest have worked tirelessly to raise the funding and support needed to keep the program open.

Their efforts paid off when the Hillcrest Family Services board announced on Thursday, May 30, that the Mt. Pleasant program would continue to operate.

Chris Betsworth, southeast Iowa mental health division director, said that the news is very exciting.

'The last couple days have been ones of relief and celebration,” Betsworth said. 'We're certainly staying busy and looking forward to hopefully staying in Henry County for a long time.”

Betsworth said that the two biggest things that contributed to the board's decision to keep the program open was a $40,000 contribution to Hillcrest from the HRSA grant and rent forgiveness from the county.

'It's not only the monetary value, but the value that was expressed through the community's response of how much we are needed helped our board members and administration acknowledge the importance of doing everything we can to stay in Henry County,” Betsworth said.

In April, Henry County supervisors voted to suspend Hillcrest's monthly rent for the foreseeable future. Hillcrest's monthly rent was $1,200 for at 106 North Jackson Street, a county-owned property.

'What they are giving us in (return) is not measurable in dollars and cents,” said supervisor Marc Lindeen during a Board of Supervisors meeting on April 4.

Hillcrest also received $40,000 from the HRSA grant, which was approved by the Board of Health in April. HRSA is a $1 million three-year federal grant to be used to create access to health care. The fiscal agent for the grant is Henry County. The grant ends June 30, 2020, and Henry County Public Health has plans to reapply for the grant on behalf of the county.

'This was an unusual situation we were faced with that could have had terrible consequences for Henry County residents, so we are thankful we were able to rebudget some of the HRSA grant funds to help prevent Hillcrest's closure,” said Kelly Carr, community outreach coordinator at Public Health

Tim Runde, Hillcrest Family Services board member, said that the community support for Hillcrest swung the board to vote to continue the program in Henry County. While the 'mathematics” of keeping the Mt. Pleasant location open are still not that great, Runde said the efforts of employees in the Mt. Pleasant branch and the community made it a reasonable business decision to suffer a little loss.

'I think it's heartening that the community puts more value in mental health than the state of Iowa does. That's basically what it comes down to,” Runde said. 'It still is going to be a loss program, but it was a reasonable loss instead of an unreasonable loss, and we wanted to recognize that the community really stepped up and our own employees really stepped up.

Hillcrest board members also wanted to recognize that closing the Mt. Pleasant location would result in significant patient loss with few providers able to take on the 600 patients seen in Henry County, Runde said.

Runde said the board is trying to avoid leaving people without services, but they originally voted to close the Mt. Pleasant location because it was 'financially impossible” at the current Managed Care Organization reimbursement rate.

'The state of Iowa needs to recognize they have systemic issues that are going to keep happening and need to take a close look at MCOs and restructuring,” Runde said. 'They are going to have loss of services and failed agencies.”

Betsworth said there will be no disruption in services or providers as Hillcrest plans to continue operations in Mt. Pleasant.

'Everyone has stayed on board and gone right through this time and plans to continue with Hillcrest for the indefinite future,” Betsworth said.

Betsworth said Hillcrest is working on more potential partnerships but was unable to provide more information because the discussions are 'fairly early on.” The board has approved the budget for the Mt. Pleasant location through fiscal year 2020, and are beginning a three-year budget analysis, Betsworth said.

In an interview with the News in March, Julie Heiderscheit, president and chief executive officer of Hillcrest said that the Mt. Pleasant location is the most expensive to operate. Heiderscheit said that voting to close the facility was a 'heart-wrenching decision” and that she was praying for a miracle.

Hillcrest provides therapy and counseling, medication prescribing and monitoring and integrated health home services in Henry County.