WHO OWNS YRMC?

Yavapai Regional Medical Center is a highly respected, acute-care hospital that was founded in April 1942 to provide area residents with a full range of comprehensive and compassionate healthcare programs and services. Today, scores of physicians work closely with hundreds of YRMC employees to create a Total Healing Environment that provides the technology and the high-quality healthcare that is consistent with our communities’ needs.

These are well known and clearly understood facts.

However, for many of our friends and patients, it is perhaps a little less clear as to “who, exactly, owns Yavapai Regional Medical Center?” The shortest and most factual answer is that “the people we serve” own YRMC. Likewise, the long answer also comes back to “the people we serve,” though the route by which you arrive at that answer is slightly more complex.

On paper, YRMC is owned by the Central Yavapai Hospital District, which was created by the vote of local residents in the early 1960s. At the time, there were two hospitals operating in the Prescott area—a community hospital (now YRMC) and a county hospital.

The purpose for establishing the Central Yavapai Hospital District—which is similar in function to a fire or school district—was to combine the two hospitals into a single hospital, preventing duplication of services and making local healthcare as efficient and as cost effective as possible.

A five-member Board of Directors is elected at large by popular vote to govern the hospital district, though no election is held if only one candidate announces for an open seat. The hospital district officially owns most of YRMC’s buildings, land and certain equipment, but leases all of these to the Yavapai Community Hospital Association, which does business as Yavapai Regional Medical Center.

The association, and therefore YRMC, is governed by a nine-member Board of Trustees made up of community residents with an interest in healthcare and a strong commitment to improving the health and well-being of their fellow citizens. YRMC’s trustees set policy for the hospital, provide direction for long-range strategic planning and monitor financial viability.

The latter task—monitoring financial viability—is important since YRMC is a not-for-profit hospital that relies solely on patient revenues and community support for all of its funding. Absolutely no taxes have ever been levied to fund YRMC programs or pay for any of its capital improvements and/or expansion projects. YRMC operates on its own, and always has.

Any revenue left over after all of the hospital’s expenses are paid is reinvested to enhance patient care and services, to reduce debt and to fund future needs. There are no out-of-state corporations or private shareholders involved with YRMC—the only shareholders are the people and the communities the hospital serves.

So, while Yavapai Regional Medical Center is shown on paper as being the property of the Central Yavapai Hospital District and being run by the Yavapai Community Hospital Association, in reality YRMC is operated and funded by none other than the people we serve.

And if they fund it and run it, then by any definition, YRMC can only be owned by those very same people—“the people we serve.”