Once a week, Rena Salamacha meets with her executive team inside the Mee Memorial Healthcare System’s medical center in King City, California, to figure out how to stretch a dollar. Never in the nearly six years that Salamacha has been CEO of the health care system has this been an uncomplicated task, but lately it’s gotten worse. They’re having trouble even finding the dollar.
“We don’t have services to cut,” Salamacha told me. “Where maybe some of the larger hospitals or health systems can cut some services, we in rural communities are really providing a lot of primary care, not specialty care. This is bread-and-butter family care, and we’re already thin-staffed and resource-strapped.”
