Long-term health-care facility proposed for Cape

A new long-term health-care facility could be coming to Cape Girardeau.

A newly formed company called Landmark Hospital of Cape Girardeau LLC filed a letter of intent to seek "certificate of need" approval from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

The company intends to build a $5 million facility complete with 30 beds suitable for long-term acute care. The facility would be at 3255 Independence St.

If approved, Landmark would be the only such facility between St. Louis and Memphis.

Michael Norman, the company's chief executive officer, said there is a clear gap in the region's long-term acute care. He said this project will meet the needs of patients within a 75-mile radius of Cape Girardeau, including part of Southern Illinois.

The facility, if approved by the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee, would provide diagnostic and medical treatment and rehabilitation to patients with chronic diseases or complex medical conditions. Norman said these patients are often too sick for skilled nursing facilities and yet probably not sick enough to warrant occupying the intensive care beds of regular acute-care facilities like Saint Francis Medical Center or Southeast Missouri Hospital on a long-term basis. Those hospitals are primarily for short-term stays.

Norman said about 90 percent of the patients in the proposed facility will be Medicare patients, and that being the case, Medicare requires the average stay of the those patients be 25 days or longer. Furthermore, Landmark will work strictly on referrals from Southeast, Saint Francis and other hospitals and nursing homes in the area.

Although it is officially termed as a hospital, Landmark will not run an emergency service. Nor would the hospital have a laboratory or operating room.

Saint Francis will actually control about 30 percent of the operations at the Landmark Hospital, while Landmark partners Norman and Dr. William Kapp hold the other 70 percent. Saint Francis president and CEO Steve Bjelich said that this project will benefit his hospital and its patients by allowing those patients to stay close to family, friends and primary care physicians.

Southeast Hospital president Jim Wente agreed that Landmark would provide a needed service that isn't currently available in this area.

However, before construction can begin, the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee -- a group of legislators and health-care professionals appointed by the governor, the president pro tem of the Missouri Senate and the speaker of the state House of Representatives -- must approve a certificate of need.

The committee's ruling could come in March. If approved, the hospital would open in February 2006.