The Hospital Board passed the financial report during a long meeting on Tuesday, September 22.

The financial report was discussed thoroughly over the two-hour meeting. Each member of the board was given their own financial book to follow through as interim administrator Tim Brown talked them through a slide show of the report.

The current position of the cash status for the hospital was $986,000 for ten days of operation. The Net A/R was 6.5 million for 72 days with 3.1 million in current liabilities.

The hospital is showing a $328k Year-to-Date loss with a $50 to $100 cash deficit per month when depreciation was added back.

Looking at July and August number from a cash standpoint is running about $118,000.

Brown showed the board a slideshow presentation that broke down the receivables balance sheet in a 16.5 million range; the overall adjustment was 63 percent.

“We decided to try to get more into the actual carriers,” Brown said, “Cariten was where a large amount of gross revenue came from for the hospital, the bulk is self pay and commercial.”

The hospital has a specific reserve fund to cover for the debt that has accrued during the time that the bill is not paid.

Brown explained that when a patient comes in they accumulate charges. The same amount is sent to the billing companies. If the company pays $2,000 for a $5,000 bill then there is a $3,000 adjustment.

When it was figured out that claims were not going to be paid the amount in the reserve was not enough to cover the debt.

In the adjustment summary, Brown covered each department in the hospital. Home health, private duty nursing and the nursing home and showed the original numbers compared to their adjusted numbers.

“We still have to do the cost report,” Brown said, “But it’s typically a positive gain.”

Brown also said that A/R Initiatives Reports would cover timely filing, pre-certification, medical necessity along with evaluation and renegotiation of insurance contracts. The reports will be handed out and looked over at each month’s board meeting.

“With knowing the numbers we know what direction we can with now with the budget,” said Brown, “We’re going to have to cut expenses and quick.”

At the end of the financial report presentation the board moved to approve the financial report and moved to discuss other business.

Board member Mike Robertson entered the Cancer Center report with a gain of $4,000.

Brown did note that on a positive note that surgeries have been over 200 for the month and radiology procedures are up. MRI’s have been down but X-Ray’s and CT’s have been up with the number of respiratory problems with the season.

ER visits reached 1400 for the month and there were over 222 overall admissions while the nursing home has an average of 88 residents.

“We have a lot of quality care going on here,” Brown said, “I’ve been getting out and talking with patients and families and they are letting me know how they feel things are going.”

Brown said the medical staff has been supportive with the changes in the past couple of months. He said that there are opportunities to work together to improve and to work toward a solution to electronic records.

The hospital is looking forward to celebrating 50 years in operation and will be planning a celebration in late October.

The next scheduled meeting for the board of directors will be Tuesday, October 20.