The Greene County Medical Center Board of Trustees met yesterday for its regular monthly session.
Chief Financial Officer Mark VanderLinden gave his October financial report to the Board.
He that there were 14 new borns at the hospital in October, which is the most in one month this year and emergency room visits were the highest in October than any other month and major surgeries saw it’s lowest number of patients last month.
GCMC has a total of $883,000 for its accounts payable, with $266,000 going to the building/expansion project and $120,000 to the EPIC recording keeping software.
VanderLinden pointed out that the federal government has changed its standards for what hospitals can claim through electronic health records. He said GCMC is projected to go from claiming $1.5 million from last year to $1.07 million starting this fiscal year. The percentages will drop from 93% to 82%. VanderLinden stated that if more Medicaid patients come to GCMC, the hospital can possibly recoup that 10% drop. The low volumes of patients right now are affecting a projected drop in the reimbursement percentage.
As for operating expenses, VanderLinden said they are under budget for October coming in at $2 million when they budgeted for just over $2 million for the month. The operating revenue is at $6,958,233 which is well under budget of $7,632,434 last month
For outpatient visits, there were 2,393 which was slightly higher than the budgeted 2,337 patients for October. Another concern VanderLinden pointed out was the patient days were down to 56 in October and there were 72 in September. He said that if patient numbers are low, they that causes supply costs to be higher.
In August, overtime expenses were low, but now it has become another concern. According to the most recent numbers in November, adds VanderLinden, overtime to increased dramatically. Part of the reason is because some departments are currently understaffed and so less amount of people are putting in more hours. He said they are still looking into the issue.
With the new national health insurance plan in place, GCMC will be offering a 150% of the poverty line marked under charity care category. VanderLinden gave an example that a family of four would have to make $35,325 or less in order to qualify for the program.
The hospital is also looking into changing how patients pay for their services. The highest amount of bills that are written off are from the emergency room services. It is currently at 71% of patients not paying their bills and one solution is collect money as the patient is leaving the hospital once they are treated in the ER.
Finally, Bill Raney and Ralph Reidesel were selected to nominate the board’s officer for next year by the December meeting.