Oulook bright for Snoqualmie Hospital levy
Published 12:56 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
SNOQUALMIE – It appears as though 24-hour emergency health care will be coming to the Valley in the months ahead.
A bond that would increase an existing 43-cent property tax to 50 cents to pay for an urgent-care facility at Snoqualmie Valley Hospital is passing with more than 53 percent approval as of the Valley Record’s deadline.
With 100 percent of King County Hospital District No. 4’s precincts reporting and 90 percent of all absentee ballots counted from the Feb. 4 election, hospital administrators are almost ready to declare victory.
“We are being cautiously optimistic,” said Hospital Administrator Jeff Lyle.
Of the 6,492 votes counted as of Friday, Feb. 7, 3,461, or 53.88 percent, had approved of the bond increase while 2,962, or 46.12 percent, had rejected it.
The vote has also reached the minimum amount of ballots cast to validate the vote. The final count for the Feb. 4 election will be available Friday, Feb. 14.
The potential victory came three months after the hospital district failed to get the simple majority it needed to raise the property tax in the Nov. 5 general election last year.
Hospital administrators, convinced the bond initially failed because of its lack of visibility in public and on the ballot, voted to try again last week.
In the meantime, the hospital district has been busy preparing for the opening by working on contracts with insurance companies that will reimburse the hospital. The equipment needed to run the facility has already been purchased and the hiring process, which will yield 10 to 12 full- and part-time employees, is underway.
Lyle said the hospital hopes to have the urgent-care facility open by the beginning of April. The clinic would be a Level 5 facility, meaning that a medical practitioner will be on site 24 hours a day.
Lyle expects the facility will initially get 13 patients a day, with a gradual increase up to 20 by the end of the year.
The urgent-care facility is expected to put the hospital $247,000 in the red by the end of the year, but Lyle said the levy money and increased patient load will help the hospital break even in coming years.
“That will be our deficit if we don’t go beyond our conservative estimates [number of urgent-care patients],” Lyle said. “Then it will be less.”
The hospital hopes to increase its visibility in the coming months with an advertising campaign based around the slogan, “We’re Closer Than You Think,” aimed at surrounding communities.
