Fort Mill’s new rehab hospital opens this week. Here’s what it means for medical care
Two years after Fort Mill finally got its first hospital, a new facility is set to open that will bridge the gap between hospital and home care.
Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Fort Mill opens this week. The 39-bed facility at 2260 Vista Road adds to Encompass Health’s 50-bed rehab hospital in Rock Hill. With 165 hospitals in nearly 40 states, Encompass Health is the largest rehab hospital operator in the country.
The new facility will have private patient rooms, a therapy gym and dining room along with in-house dialysis and pharmacy services. Physical therapy, doctor visits and 24-hour nursing care will be provided for patients no longer in need of a traditional hospital, but who aren’t quite ready to be on their own.
“A lot of our patients have gone through some traumatic event that has resulted in possibly a loss of balance or strength, or even speech, swallowing,” said Encompass Health area CEO Scott Butler. “It could be they suffered a stroke. They had a traumatic car accident.”
Or it could be hip replacement surgery where recovery took longer than expected, he said, like for someone with stairs or a large dog and home who may not want to go straight there from a traditional hospital.
“We span that gap, for usually about a period of two weeks or so, and rebuild the strength and anything else they need to be safe and secure at home,” Butler said.
The rehab hospital takes patients as young as 16, but tends to serve many seniors. Butler doesn’t expect a hard time filling the new beds, given the company’s experience in Rock Hill and his time living in Fort Mill.
“The population is booming,” he said. “Charlotte is booming, and people are looking to get out of the city. I think they’re realizing that York County, Fort Mill in particular, is a great place to raise a family.”
People can be nervous about healthcare, Butler said, particularly if they aren’t familiar with a facility or services. Some question why they might have to move from a traditional hospital to a rehab one. Butler encourages people to look up Encompass Health, which serves one of every three rehabilitation patients across the country.
“We have become experts at that,” he said. “We get tremendous results from that.”
Healthcare options continue to expand
More than a decade of legal challenges among competing hospital companies vying for a Fort Mill site led to the opening of Piedmont Medical Center — Fort Mill two years ago. In those waiting years, Fort Mill grew rapidly. Population soared at rates often higher than any other town Fort Mill’s size in the region, or country.
Healthcare options followed. Piedmont opened a new freestanding emergency room on Gold Hill Road. Indian Land has several new medical sites that will serve another planned hospital, this one by the Medical University of South Carolina.
That group intends to open a medical office building late next year and a hospital off Charlotte Highway in 2027, officials told The Herald this spring.
Numerous other doctor offices and specialty care facilities have opened in the past few years. Encompass Health began the town approval process for its facility soon after Piedmont got the final go ahead to build its hospital, and two years before the Piedmont hospital opened.
