Rejection of one certificate of need application doesn’t mean that Bowling Green’s Med Center Health doesn’t still see a need for more emergency medical services in the city.

Just three months after its CON application for a freestanding emergency department in The Hub development along Lovers Lane was denied by Frankfort-based hearing officer Kris M. Carlton, Med Center Health in May applied for a similar facility along Nashville Road not far from Hillvue Heights Church.

According to Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services records, Med Center Health has applied to build the 12,500-square-foot emergency department on property it owns at 3132 Nashville Road.

The application indicates that MCH aims to build the facility on a 3.9-acre tract that includes an administrative office building that will be razed to make room for a freestanding emergency department expected to cost $14.4 million (including equipment).

MCH leadership confirmed the plans in an emailed statement, saying: “Med Center Health has submitted a certificate of need application to establish a freestanding emergency department … to address current and future needs.

“This project is aimed at alleviating capacity constraints and improving efficiency at our main campus emergency department while simultaneously creating additional emergency department capacity on the south side of Bowling Green. We believe this will improve access to care for patients from Warren and surrounding counties.”

The MCH application says the facility will have 12 exam rooms and will be staffed around the clock by board-certified emergency medicine physicians.

It will be operated, according to the application, as a hospital-based department under the license of The Medical Center, which is located approximately five miles away.

If granted CHFS approval, MCH plans to begin construction in September and complete the project in December 2025, according to the application.

The emergency department will be among a number of construction projects planned by MCH. The not-for-profit health care company announced last November $145 million worth of projects, including a hybrid freestanding emergency department and urgent care facility on a 10-acre parcel it owns in The Hub.

But Carlton, after hearing testimony from MCH and affected party TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, in February issued a final order finding that Greenview had successfully rebutted the presumption of need for the facility under the “nonsubstantive review” of the application.

MCH arguments for the hybrid facility were countered mostly by Greenview’s own plans for the Lovers Lane corridor.

In testimony at the February hearing, Greenview Chief Operations Officer Sam Younger pointed out that Greenview has already won CON approval for both a second hospital and a freestanding emergency department in that corridor.

A CON issued in April of 2023 allows Greenview to build a $350 million, 238,405-square-foot facility to be called TriStar Greenview Regional East Hospital on a 30-acre tract adjacent to the Greenview Surgery Center and Graves Gilbert Clinic offices at 484 Golden Autumn Way.

Its 72 beds would be transferred from the 211-bed Greenview hospital on Ashley Circle, meaning there would be no initial increase in the total number of beds operated by the affiliate of Nashville’s HCA Healthcare.

Younger said the new hospital is expected to have a 12,500-square-foot emergency department with 12 spaces for patients, which will be in addition to the 25 treatment spaces at the Ashley Circle emergency department.

Greenview also has approval to build an 11,131-square-foot freestanding emergency department at 478 Lovers Lane. Younger said the freestanding emergency department will have 12 patient service areas.

Younger argued that there is no need for another freestanding emergency department in the Lovers Lane area, and the hearing officer agreed.

Carlton’s final order said Med Center Health “failed to prove that an additional freestanding emergency department in the identified geographical service area is needed.”

Now MCH is trying a new location for the emergency department. Meanwhile, MCH Executive Vice President Wade Stone in an email offered no comment about the company’s plans for the Lovers Lane acreage.