BRUNSWICK — Mid Coast Hospital has filed a Certificate of Need application to take over Parkview Adventist Medical Center, also in Brunswick.

The application includes a 900-page consolidation proposal that Mid Coast officials say will save the Brunswick area $24.3 million a year in health care costs.

“Inpatient health care is really, really expensive and the utilization of inpatient care has been declining over time, so that duplication that we have with Parkview is really costing in excess of $24 million to this small community,” Steven Trockman, spokesman for Mid Coast, said. “We think a partnership with them could eliminate that excess cost and give that right back to the small business and taxpayers and the other payers of health care, including insurance companies.”

Trockman stopped short of saying Mid Coast would shut down Parkview if the state approved its application. He said Mid Coast would like to talk with Parkview about what consolidation could look like, including the possibility of having outpatient care at Parkview and inpatient care at Mid Coast.

“It’s really about need,” Trockman said. “Is there a need for two acute-care inpatient hospitals in such a small community?”

Central Maine Healthcare, the parent organization of Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, has filed a competing Certificate of Need application. It would like to take over Parkview but would make no changes to services or the number of beds.

Parkview’s board chairman, Mike Ortel, has said he would prefer CMHC’s proposal over Mid Coast’s, calling a partnership with CMHC’ “by far the best option for both Parkview and the communities we serve as we go forward in the 21st century.”

Trockman said other members of Parkview’s community may hold a different view. 

“I don’t believe in the media we have heard from everybody. I don’t know that we’ve heard from the Parkview-based staff and the medical staff about what they really want. I think we want that conversation,” he said.

Mid Coast Hospital is a 92-bed independent full-service hospital that has an average daily occupancy rate of 59 percent; Parkview is a 55-bed hospital with an average occupancy rate of 18 percent; Central Maine Medical Center is a 250-bed full-service hospital. Information on its average daily occupancy rate was not immediately available.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Licensing and Regulatory Services will consider both Certificate of Need applications.

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