Hospital board discusses next steps in management
contract process
Published:
Claiborne Progress
Wednesday,
May 27, 2009
by Andrea
Schneider
The
Claiborne
County
Hospital
board will re-start the process of choosing a management contract after a
recent decision made by the Claiborne County Commission.
The hospital board recommended a new management contract with Mercy Health
Partners to the commission over three months ago. When the commission
finally voted on the contract, a motion to accept the contract failed
because according to County Mayor Joe Duncan several commissioners wanted to
hear from other interested entities.
Now, the hospital board must start the selection process from the beginning
and allow any other interested entities a second chance to present contract
proposals.
Hospital board member Rob Asbury said at the April board meeting that if the
commission did deny the contract with Mercy, he wanted to make sure the
board had a policy and sample proposal for all interested entities to follow
this time.
Asbury was prepared for the commission’s decision and brought four sample
proposals before the board at their May meeting. Asbury said he felt the
samples he brought were good examples for the board to follow when
establishing their own sample proposal.
The board discussed their next steps and possible items to include in the
sample proposal and discussed issues they were concerned with in regards to
the management of the hospital. Such issues included finances and the
management of not only a hospital but a nursing home as well.
After further discussing the sample proposals board member Mike Robertson
said he had received a letter from Pete DeBusk regarding his and Lincoln Memorial
University’s position with
the hospital and Mercy. Robertson said the letter was addressed to the
entire board and that he was asked to read it at the board meeting.
The letter explained that DeBusk and Lincoln Memorial University at one time
were interested in working with Mercy Health Partners to “get a new regional
medical center in Claiborne County in connection with the medical school
because we realize, ultimately, for a hospital to succeed, you have to
receive graduate medical education dollars as a teaching facility and you
have to have critical mass (patient load) to achieve this.”
In the letter, DeBusk further explained, “Please understand that this is our
wish but, as you see, it has become very difficult for us to put this
together.”
The letter said, “The only reason we got involved with Mercy Health Partners
was because of their mission to care for the poor and underserved people of
this region, as well as the fact they were managing the current hospital in Claiborne County. We did not want to interfere with
this relationship.”
Once Robertson had read the letter the board briefly discussed its contents
and then went back to discussing the sample proposals. The board decided to
take some time to review two of the sample proposals that Asbury felt were
the best and recess until Tues. May 26 at 6:00 p.m. before establishing
their own proposal.
Also during the meeting the board heard the 2008 audit report from Dean
Nebben of Burk, Pearlman, Nebben & Huggins, PLC. They heard bad news in the
finance department from Controller Jessica Justice who informed the board
that the hospital’s finances were still in the red. Justice reported that
for the month of April the hospital had a combined net loss of $131,804
compared to a budgeted net income of $83,500. Justice explained that a big
part of the problem came from charitable deductions and bad debt.
The board reviewed the Administrator’s report from Jack Bryan, of Mercy
Health Partner’s and approved it and the financial report by a unanimous
vote.
Since the medical staff only meets every other month, Dr. Richard Clark reported that there was no medical
staff report because they did not meet this month.
The Claiborne County Hospital Board did not adjourn their May meeting, but
recessed until Tues. May 26 at 6:00 p.m. They will reconvene to finalize the
sample proposal and discuss the next steps they will take in the management
contract process.
