A Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service vehicle is parked in the emergency room bay at Adirondack Health's Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center in January 2019, when the ER opened. (Enterprise photo — Griffin Kelly)

LAKE PLACID — The emergency room at the Lake Placid Health and Medical Fitness Center will not operate expanded hours during the Ironman triathlon this Sunday.

Typically, the part-time Lake Placid ER stays open extra hours — sometimes 24 hours a day — when the annual triathlon returns to this village. This year is different. On Sunday, anyone requiring emergency care after the ER closes at 8 p.m. will be transported to Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake, roughly 10 miles away from Lake Placid. Both the Lake Placid hospital and AMC are operated by Adirondack Health.

Ironman organizers requested expanded ER hours but that request was denied by Adirondack Health, according to Adirondack Health spokesman Matt Scollin.

Asked if the Lake Placid ER would usually see an uptick in patient visits during large-scale sporting events such as Ironman, Scollin said “not typically.”

“Patient volumes and acuities are comparable to those seen during regular business hours,” he said.

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ER closure

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The hospital is in the process of seeking state approval to close the Lake Placid ER altogether.

Late last year, Adirondack Health submitted a plan to close its Lake Placid ER to the state Department of Health, citing a $10 million deficit from running the ER during 2022 alone.

“We analyzed all Lake Placid emergency department visit types for the first six months of 2022, based on the patients’ presenting concerns, and found that 89% were non-urgent or semi-urgent, 9% were urgent, and 2% were truly emergencies,” an open letter from Adirondack Health officials published in the Enterprise last year reads. “These low patient volumes translate to a loss of over $2.2 million per year. Put another way, Adirondack Health spends about $8,800 per day to staff and operate the Lake Placid emergency department, while only generating about $2,700 per day in revenue.”

The health network is still awaiting a response from the state, so for now, the ER remains open.

“I wish I had something new to report, but we continue to work with the Department of Health to transition the part-time Lake Placid emergency department to a sustainable service that better meets the needs of the community,” Scollin said.

However, the health network’s dental facility on Barn Road in Lake Placid closed “indefinitely” last month. This past February, Adirondack Health revealed that it also submitted a closure plan for its dental facility. In an email to the Enterprise last month, Scollin cited financial “stressors” and staffing issues as Adirondack Health’s reasons for seeking authorization to close the office, saying that the dental practice typically adds $350,000 to health network deficits each year. The hospital had also been searching for a new dental hygienist to work at the facility for the last three years.

Scollin said the dental facility had to close after staff resignations and “key staff constraints.”

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CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct an earlier statement from Scollin which said that Ironman did not request expanded ER hours. Organizers did request expanded hours and the request was denied.