MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mon Health Systems and the Highland-Clarksburg Hospital have announced a clinical affiliation. Mon Health President and CEO David Goldberg said the relationship will allow each entity to share their strengths with the other.
“They stay totally independent- they have their own board of directors, their employees are their own,” Goldberg said. “We just bring in levels of support to help them on what they identify and at Highland-Clarksburg they are a behavioural health hospital.”
The partnership immediately brings Mon Health Systems the ability to better respond to behavioral health issues. Highland-Clarksburg Hospital is licensed for 115 beds.
“Not to richness and depth that they do at Highland-Clarksburg,” Goldberg said. “So, together we think we can help each other out, help the patients, help those programs and maintain their stability in the Clarksburg area.”
Goldberg said Mon Health patients in the Morgantown area will have new options when it comes to behavioral health care.
“Some of the behavorial health providers- psychiatrists, psychologists, nurse practitioners and staff can help us diagnose and treat patients that present at Mon Health Medical Center,” Goldberg said.
The clinical affiliation does not come with any financial arrangement. However, Mon Health will be able to offer some administrative assistance that can bring efficiencies to the operation.
” Economically they are their own hospital. They do their own billing, mostly to the state for the type of patients they see at Highland-Clarksburg,” Goldberg said. ” So, we don’t get involved in theri billing cycle and we’re not assuming any debt.”
Now, the Highland-Clarksburg organization has access to Mon Health resources in order to streamline, or in some cases lower the cost of operation.
“It’s definitely a very opportunistic way for them to get levels of support they can’t get on their own,” Goldberg said. “We have a lot of infrastructure that we can lend them and we can do it affordably.”
The Highland-Clarksburg Hospital has been in operation since 2013.