Kootenai Medical Center recently received a gift valued at $960,000 when its partners in North Idaho Behavioral Health gave their share of that psychiatric treatment and behavioral health business to the Coeur dAlene hospital.


Jack Yuditsky and Mike Cancelosi, who had been operating North Idaho Behavioral Health jointly with Kootenai Medical Center since last March, gave their 49 percent interest in the venture to the KMC Foundation, which then transferred it to the hospital.


Yuditsky says he and Cancelosi wanted to retire, and decided to give their share of the business, which currently employs 126 people, to the hospital because they wanted to do something for the community they had lived and worked in for many years. He acknowledged that he and Cancelosi will receive a tax benefit as a result of the gift, but says, That was not the primary consideration. I think its a losing proposition to make a gift to get a tax write-off. The two also own a similar facility in Casper, Wyo.


The gift is the first of its kind to be received by the KMC Foundation, says Jim Faucher, executive director of the foundation and Kootenai Medical Centers vice president for community development. The foundation helped facilitate the transfer after Yuditsky and Cancelosi expressed an interest in the move, he says.


The gift put us over the $10 million mark in contributions to the foundation since we were established 14 or 15 years ago, Faucher adds.


Last year, the Coeur dAlene hospitals Kootenai Psychiatric Center bought a 51 percent stake in what was then its larger rival, Inland Behavioral Health Institute, which was established under another name in 1980 and was owned by Yuditsky and Cancelosi. Under that new ownership, the business was renamed North Idaho Behavioral Health.


The motivation for the 1999 transaction was that we determined maybe wed be better off working together in the current (health-care) environment, says Joe Morris, CEO of Kootenai Medical Center. For example, by becoming a limited liability company under the hospitals license, North Idaho Behavioral Health could accept young Medicaid patients who had, until then, gone to Spokane for treatment because the Medicaid program wouldnt cover treatment at a for-profit psychiatric hospital.


North Idaho Behavioral Health provides inpatient, residential, and outpatient psychiatric and chemical dependency services for adults and children. The company has 24 adult beds on the Kootenai Medical Center campus, and 64 beds for adolescents at the former Inland Behavioral Health location, at 2301 N. Ironwood Place.


The partnership went well, Morris says, although it created some confusion in the community.


A few months ago, hospital executives began talking with Yuditsky and Cancelosi about consolidating ownership of North Idaho Behavioral Health. They were comfortable with the fact that we could operate it, Morris says.


There are no plans to merge North Idaho Behavioral Healths two locations, and no changes in staffing are planned.