By Michelle Price
Special to the UCBJ
COOKEVILLE – Healthcare costs in Cookeville are among the lowest in the nation according to a recent report by Rent.com. The cost of healthcare in Cookeville is 22% lower than the national average, second only to McAllen, TX at 30.1% below the national average.
Cookeville Regional Medical Center (CRMC) CEO Paul Korth confirmed that CRMC’s prices are somewhat lower compared to other hospitals. He attributes that to the fact that CRMC is a not-for-profit, community-owned hospital.
“The money we make goes right back into improving and adding services at our hospital,” said Korth. “We don’t have to provide dividends to shareholders and are better able to hold our prices down compared to some other facilities. By keeping our hospital independent and community-owned, we are able to make decisions here based on our community’s needs and able to better control our costs, and as a result, offer better pricing for our patients.”
To finding the most affordable cities for healthcare, Rent.com took the average prices for healthcare from the Council for Community and Economic Research Q1 2019 Cost of Living report. They ranked each city and county in the C2ER report in terms of affordability for healthcare, with the cheapest being 1 and the most expensive as 256. The cities with the lowest overall scores were determined to be the most affordable.
Other Tennessee cities that ranked in the 25 cheapest cities for healthcare were No. 7 -Memphis at 18% below average, No. 27 – Jackson-Madison County at 12.9% below average and No. 36 – Columbia-Maury County at 11.4% below average.
