Added expense of EPIC implementation results in June financial loss for Veterans Memorial Hospital; Board discusses healthcare impact of One Big Beautiful Bill Act

by Brianne Grimstad

The month of June marked the fifth consecutive month at Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) in Waukon with a Gross Patient Revenue over $5,000,000, according to numbers presented at the July monthly meeting of the VMH Board of Trustees. Gross Patient Revenue for the month came in at $5,040,234.

However, after deducting contractuals, Charity Care and Bad Debt, the Total Operating Revenue came in at $2,958,415. Expenses for the month totaled $3,510,477, and after adding in Non-Operating Income, the hospital ended the month showing a loss of $430,135.

VMH Administrator Michael Coyle explained, while that end result isn’t ideal, there were some expenses with the implementation of EPIC, approximately $500,000, that couldn’t be capitalized. He noted that all of this was money that had already been paid out, and with EPIC going live, it needed to be accounted for in the monthly finances. He further explained that the software itself is capitalized over seven years.

“If we take that out (the costs associate with EPIC going live), we had a $70,000 positive bottom line,” Coyle noted. He added “From a true profit and loss off of operations, it was better than a break-even month. Things are heading in a favorable direction for us.”

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