Veterans Memorial Hospital reports loss in November 2015

Despite financial set back, other positive attributes noted for month

by Brianne Eilers

The month of November ended on a disappointing note, financially, for Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH), with a loss of $45,015. VMH Administrator Mike Myers said that, year-to-date, the hospital is showing a loss of $155,618. He noted that last year at the same time, the hospital had been in better financial shape.
“When you look at it (the month of November), our acute days are down, our deliveries are down, our skilled days are down, our surgeries are down," Myers said. He said December had started out strong, but Myers said that they are anticipating a slight loss again. Expenses tracked along with a decline in revenue, being just 0.6% ahead of this time last year.
A few of the patient areas that were up included outpatient lab, up 22.5%, outpatient MRI, up 36.1%, and cardiac rehab, up 22.6%. Emergency room visits were up 8%.
Looking at other positives, the number of days in Accounts Receivable is down to 87.5, compared to being at 108.3 last November. “And that translates to building back up our (cash) reserves,” Myers noted. Cash reserves for VMH are up to $2,228,861, compared to being at $1,816,000 last November.

In other matters, the Medicaid Managed Care will not be going into effect January 1, 2016 as was initially planned. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) deemed that the system was not ready to go in time. One of the four private managed care companies that were signed on to run the program, WellCare, had its contracts terminated in December due to allegations that the company did not disclose relevant information. WellCare has taken the matter to court. Myers noted that hospitals will need to start preparing for that. “We are prepared to contract with whoever has a contract,” Myers noted, adding that VMH wants to make sure that people on Medicaid in the area will have a hospital close by. He also noted that Medicaid participants should be sure to contract with the same company that their physicians have contracted with.

VMH has also entered into an agreement with Athena Health to take over the hospital’s electronic medical records (EMR). They purchased the existing service, RazorInsights. “The difference between Athena and Razor is that Athena Health is really a service that is more than just medical records. It will keep track of billing for you, and work with you on your existing vendors,” Myers noted, adding that Athena Health is the eighth or ninth largest EHR (electronic health records) in the country, and he noted that they have cornered the market on the Cloud base. “So that’s the advantage,” he said. “We don’t have to buy a bunch of servers and look for a bunch of IT people because they do it remotely from Boston.”
Athena Health focuses on hospitals with 25 beds or less and they have about 70,000 physicians that use their product. Myers said their motto is to get physicians back to the patient bedside and away from the computers. Myers feels that this change will be a step up from where VMH has begun with EMR. Athena Health is working with the hospital to recertify for meaningful use requirements.