Hospital Board Requests New Contract with Mercy Health
Published: Claiborne Independent
January 28, 2009
by W. Lee Brame
The Claiborne County
Hospital Board met for their regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Jan.
20. After review and approval of the December meeting minutes, the board
heard the financial report for the previous month. Despite an increase in
volumes and gross revenue, hospital operations lost just under $12,000 for
the month. The hospitals loss was partially offset by positive revenue flows
in the nursing home, home health care and emergency services. Losses accrued
by the employed physicians were smaller than expected.
A significant amount of
loss resulted from recent changes by many insurance companies that expanded
the number of procedures that required pre-certification. Payments for the
procedures which now require pre-certifications were denied.
Hospital administrators
spent much of January evaluating how often the software that tracks changes
should be updated and the accuracy of the last update. Several other
administrative procedures related to the speed at which bills are processed
are also being evaluated as well as administrative staffing levels during
the holidays.
Mercy Health Partners
(who are still pursuing an expanded management agreement with the hospital)
volunteered to send an specialist in insurance billing and the accounts
receivable process to assist the hospital with their analysis. When asked if
a 50/50 risk sharing agreement would result in MHP writing a check for half
of the December losses, the answer was “yes” under the proposed agreement.
As requested during the
previous week’s workshop, Mercy Health Partners provided board members with
a proposed agreement that included the 50/50 risk agreement and an option by
which Claiborne County could enter into a lease/purchase arrangement with
Mercy. After much discussion, the board decided to not take any action on
the proposed agreement and to request that MHP consider a new agreement that
is essentially identical to the current agreement that expires this summer.
MHP agreed to provide a new contract without the controversial new issues
for review during the coming month.
The board agreed to
continue to monitor developments (proposed medical facilities that will
compete with Claiborne County Hospital) at the DeBusk College of Osteopathic
Medicine and national health care reform efforts.
In other business, the
board voted to approve funds for major roof repairs contingent upon the
public bidding process and review of a new conflicts of interests and
disclosure statement now required by the Office of the Inspector General for
medical services.
