TRUMBULL COUNTY, OH - For the first time since his meeting with Insight, Attorney General Dave Yost is speaking publicly on the discussions about reopening Insight Hospital and Medical Center, and Insight Rehabilitation Hospital Hillside.

“I reached out to Insight and said hey would you be able to sit down with us and have a background meeting and help us understand your business, where you are, and what’s going on and what your hopes are, and that was a useful meeting,” said Yost.

While Yost said he's more optimistic after speaking directly with the company, he acknowledges reopening could be a long process. 

“This isn’t a matter of turning on a light switch. This will be a process that will happen over a period of time,” said Yost.

During that process, Yost said he's hoping to remove any barriers to reopening. Yost praised Insight Health for their dedication to the Trumbull County hospitals.

“It would have been easy for them to throw up their hands and walk away from the thing and say we can't make this work and that's not their position at all,” said Yost.

Yost said now his focus is on clearing a path for Insight to reopen the hospitals. There is no set timeline for reopening for the hospitals to reopen, but as time passes, concerns over the lost employee deepens.

“That’s one of the reasons time is at the essence here and why our office is continuing to press hard to try to find and remove barriers to the path forward,” said Yost. “Every week that goes on makes it more difficult to staff up and that's one of the reasons why I said this will be a process. You're not going to be able to flip a light switch.”

The biggest hurdle is taking over Medicare and Medicaid billing from Steward. Since the hospital was operating under Steward licensing for medicare and medicaid, the group is no longer getting those funds.

“They are the ones with the provider numbers. And so, there are some processes here that will ultimately allow insight to operate independently. That's not really in their control or the Attorney General's control,” said Yost.

The discussion took a turn when 21 News asked Yost about unanswered questions. 

We know some medical equipment has been repossessed and there's a question of public trust after Insight abruptly shut its doors, leaving patients and employees scrambling. 

Yost dismissed the medical equipment as "rumor and innuendo," despite it being documented on the bankruptcy docket.

“I think that’s kind of an unfair question. They kind of came in as an effort to help and assumed good faith from other actors that weren’t always there,” said Yost.

When asked if he heard anything in the meeting that would counter the public's concerns over trust in Insight, Yost also called that question unfair.

“Number one, I don’t have any indication other than your assertion that the public thinks they can't be trusted. I hear a journalist who thinks that every question they ever have from a private business ought to be answered by deadline,” said Yost. “That’s not the way the world works.”