Veterans Memorial Hospital receives a favorable annual audit report, continues steady progress in new fiscal year

by Brianne Grimstad

The Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) Board of Trustees met for its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, October 28. The board heard a presentation, during which the results from the annual audit conducted by the auditing firm Wipfli were presented to the board.
VMH Administrator Michael Coyle noted that VMH received a “favorable report” and he also noted that the audit team was impressed with how easy the VMH staff was to work with and how organized everything was. There were no major issues found during the audit, just a few adjustments to be made.

Coyle noted that the hospital does not receive IPERS information until after the audit was completed, which was one of the adjustments, as  well as some estimates for the 2025 Medicare Cost Report. After everything was completed, VMH ended up with a positive bottom line of $694,000 for the year.

Coyle noted that some of those dollars are inflated due to how VMH has to account for IPERS and some lease contracts in the new accounting standards.

“Overall, considering we implemented EPIC and all the costs and time associated with that, to have a good bottom line at the end of the year is great. Kudos to our staff for taking care of the business,” Coyle said.

In the new fiscal year, VMH staff will be focusing on how to enhance Medicare paybacks on cost reports and also discussing what is happening in the industry with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the Rural Investment Fund, overall trends like Medicare Advantage not paying as well, finding it harder to complete pre-authorization, and immediate denials.

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