The Tennessee Health Facilities Commission voted 7-1 on Sept. 23 to deny a certificate of need application for a cardiovascular ASC in Cookeville, Tenn., a commission spokesperson confirmed to Becker’s.
The proposed TN Heart Cardiovascular Surgery Center would have been a single-specialty ASC owned by Germantown, Tenn.-based Stern Cardiovascular Center and managed by Atria Health Services of the South, according to documents and the CON application.
The 11,729-square-foot facility was planned with one cardiac catheterization lab, one operating room and one procedure room, offering diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheterizations, electrophysiology procedures and peripheral vascular procedures.
The applicant, Tennessee Heart, is an 11-cardiologist practice that went independent through a July 2026 partnership with Stern and Atria. Its physicians were previously employed by Cookeville (Tenn.) Regional Medical Center, a 309-bed hospital that is located less than three miles from the proposed ASC.
TN Heart claimed that the region’s hospital cath labs are overloaded and patients are waiting two to three weeks for elective diagnostic caths and about eight months for electrophysiology procedures and ablations. The organization said nearly 250 people backed the project, including state Reps. Ed Butler and Michael Hale, Putnam County’s public health director and Cookeville Regional’s former chief of staff, Joseph Jestus, MD.
Cookeville Regional argued the new ASC would fragment care, offer minimal savings once complication transfers are counted and leave the hospital with a heavier share of high-acuity and uncompensated patients.
The $11.8 million project was planned to open in February 2028.
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