“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” read a graphic in Southwest Health System CEO Joe Theine’s presentation to the Montezuma County Board of Commissioners Monday.
He was referring to Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez, operated by SHS, which has taken a big hit from federal funding cuts and declines in hospital visits.
During the previous BOCC meeting, Theine painted a dismal picture of the hospital’s finances, projecting a reduction of $9.6 million a year in operating income. He cited the looming threats of federal funding cuts to Medicaid along with reductions in patient volume as the culprits in his Monday presentation.
“Consumers have been increasing their debt, interest rates remain high, the cost of living just in general for the average person has been going up,” Theine said. “People were looking at healthcare as the one place they could spend less money on.”
Theine said the hospital operated at a $1.6 million loss in the first quarter of 2026, a theme among many rural hospitals. He referred to Mercy Hospital and Animas Surgical Hospital, which he said are seeing some of their worst years financially as well. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, rural hospitals have been suffering, with an analysis of statewide data from 2019 and 2024 concluding that more than 80% of rural hospitals are unable to achieve sustainable margins.
“Most hospitals have reached a point where they're not sustainable, meaning they're not generating enough revenues over expenses to recapitalize, to pay for equipment and facilities as they age out,” Theine said.
However, the hospital has made some strides in securing grants and expanding services in the midst of revenue losses too. Theine said the number of people seeking primary care from the hospital has risen exponentially since December 2024 and, in the last year, the hospital stayed at or under a 2% rate of people leaving the emergency department without treatment.
The hospital is also working closely with Montrose Regional Health to bring cardiology resources to Cortez. Last week, Theine said, two full-time providers – a cardiologist and a nurse practitioner – signed a letter of intent with the health system to work in Cortez.
“Later this year, if all goes well, we expect to have a full-time cardiologist working out of our hospital employed by Montrose, and also a full-time nurse practitioner who's worked in cardiology for a number of years,” Theine said. “So later this year we'll be able to announce schedules and other things.”
Local partnerships also include Mercy Hospital, which supported Southwest Memorial in providing a wider variety of chemotherapy treatments.
“The past three years, prior to working more closely with Mercy, we typically administered just two or three different chemo agents,” Theine said. “In 2025, working closely with our pharmacists, our nurses and the oncologists at Mercy, that number's gone up to just under 20 out of a total of about 40 different agents that are used to treat cancer patients.”
The hospital is also being outfitted with an energy storage system to power the hospital for an estimated two days in the face of any power outages, thanks to funding from the Department of Energy and the Department of Local Affairs. Theine said the system could save the hospital around $120,000 a year on electricity once up and running, which he predicted could take up to a year and a half.
While finances remain shaky, some state lawmakers are working to pass funding bills that would support Southwest Health. Theine said he was thankful for Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper’s proposal that secured $1.9 million for trauma imaging equipment and Rep. Jeff Hurd’s request for $1.5 million to replace the hospital’s ambulance fleet.
The Rural Health Transformation Program was passed to enhance rural healthcare, although, Theine said, it likely won’t be a lifesaver. From the fund, Colorado officials suggested allocating $200,000 each to 20 rural hospitals out of a total of more than 45 rural hospitals across the state.
“Only half the hospitals in the state would be getting on average about $200,000, so not a way that's going to really replace the lost income that we're already seeing,” Theine said.
Regardless, Theine ended his presentation on a positive note, highlighting the hard work of hospital staff in working to keep daily operations flowing.
“Hopefully what you're seeing is there's a lot of people working together to help ensure great healthcare in this community from the staff inside the hospital, the physicians, the providers, our elected officials,” he said.
avanderveen@the-journal.com
