Cass County closer to construction of critical access hospital

Brad Swenson

Bemidji Pioneer

Cass County got what it wanted Tuesday from a federal agency what it couldn’t get done legislatively for years — a go-ahead for a critical access hospital.

“It’s good news for Cass County,” U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave preliminary approval to the county to construct a hospital at Ah-Gwah-Ching south of Walker, applying a different rule than the one that required a critical access hospital to be more than 35 miles away from another CAH.