July 21, 2023 |
Photo – MHCC – Bigfoot99 file photo
Memorial Hospital of Carbon County was hurt by the previous administration’s decisions, says the new interim CFO.
The hospital in Rawlins has been in dire financial straits for years. On March 7th, former Chief Executive Officer Ken Harmon told the Board of Carbon County Commissioners that the hospital had $16 million in unpaid patient bills.
Harmon abruptly resigned in May. He cited stress from the position as the main cause for his departure. Harmon arrived shortly before the national outbreak of coronavirus. His temporary replacement, Rex Walk, is attempting to unravel the hospital’s tangled finances. During the July 5th County Commissioners meeting, Walk said the hospital’s finances were not being properly reported. He needed to sort out the numbers.
During Tuesday’s commissioners meeting, Interim Chief Financial Officer Wayne Colson said he compiled a rough estimate of the hospital’s finances for the first half of this year. The interim CFO said the hospital lost about half as much money as the same time last year.
CFO Colson said the hospital’s biggest loss was accounts receivable, or AR. He said uninsured or underinsured patients make up a surprising percentage of the facility’s clientele.
Colson said the problem seems to stem from staff not properly informing patients of the cost of a procedure. He said not asking patients how they intend to pay does a disservice to both the patient and the hospital.
Colson said under the former CEO’s watch, patients were receiving automatic billing statements with incorrect information. He said statements often had the wrong balance or didn’t reflect recently made payments. Colson said he put a stop to the billing errors immediately.
Colson said the errors came from the billing software the hospital uses. He said he will have his staff manually add up patient’s bills until the software issues are resolved.
The interim CFO said he was surprised at how poorly the billing system was functioning. Colson said representatives from the software company didn’t believe how bad things had gotten.
Commissioner John Johnson asked Colson where the hospital’s billing problems originated. Colson laid the blame at the feet of former CEO Harmon. The interim CFO said Harmon refused to use the benefits available from the software provider.
Commissioner Johnson asked Colson if the county would begin to see the hospital’s budget stabilize. Colson said things would get worse before they got better. The interim CFO said Harmon made some bad deals with contractors. Colson used a medical coding company as an example. He said the contract did not benefit the hospital.
Colson said the medical coding company didn’t have a limit on how many hours they could charge the hospital.
Commissioner Johnson said he heard from past administrators that they could fix the hospital’s financial problems. He asked MHCC Board of Trustees Treasurer Garry Goergen his opinion of the hospital’s two principals, Walk and Colson. Georgen said the board was very dissatisfied with the previous administration. He said the board of trustees are optimistic that Walk and Colson can fix the hospital’s money problems. Goergen said hospital staff are happy with the changes too.
Walk said he’s looked over the edge and he’s confident that he and his staff can walk the hospital back from the financial brink. The commissioners instructed Walk and Colson to continue presenting financial reports at their bi-monthly meetings.
