Mississippi County Hospital System experienced a significant drop in patient volume over the past few months, which has resulted in a financial slump, but members of the board of governors said at their Monday meeting they feel the new physician practices which have been instituted over the past year will soon begin to be profitable.
According to CFO Randy Nichols' report, Great River Medical Center's admissions over the past month were down 14 percent and its emergency room visits down 12 percent. At South Mississippi County, emergency room visits were down 14 percent but admissions were up 42 percent. At GRMC, surgery cases are ramping up by 13 percent, largely because of the new practice of Dr. Brian Niles, who took over the urology practice of Dr. C.E. Campbell and has been performing surgical procedures regularly.
The system showed a drop of $800,000 in gross revenues from January through April, which Nichols said reflects the lowered patient volume; however, he said the system is still in better shape than it was last year at this time and that "the phones aren't ringing very often anymore" for accounts payable.
Responding to questions about the drop in patient volume, Beaty said any reason given would be pure speculation.
"Of course there's no way to know for sure, so this is purely speculative," he said. "But it could be that people are beginning to become aware about not seeking treatment if they don't have the money to pay. Everything correlates with our emergency department business. People are being more selective now about coming in for minor ailments. Our physician practices aren't complaining about a decline in patient visits. April was one of the best months Dr. Ashley has had."
Nichols added that the patients who could be classified as "self pay" or uninsured have continued to show up, but the ones who could pay, theoretically, are not coming in as often. It is common for those without insurance or the ability to pay medical bills to use the emergency room as their main source of health care.
Mike Huffman, who sits on the board's finance committee, said in spite of these downturns he feels that the new physician practices set up over the past year have needed some time to get established and will soon start bringing in revenue.
The system also declares a large amount of its expenses as charity care. Nichols said that as of January of this year, they have declared $259,000 of charity care, or bills written off for those who came in with documents to prove they could not pay. He said a "great deal" of patients were given the paperwork but never returned to file it, and that the system had $4 million in bad debt at year to date this year. The system is in the process of applying for a tax-exempt letter, by which it could maintain its county-government owned status but be tax free.
In other hospital news:
-- HCAP quality scores continue to show lower ratings from a certain population of patients in the area of information about medications and pain management. Connie Ash, the system's clinical services director, said teams are dealing with each of these issues: printed information sheets are being issued with medications and a pain awareness program is being considered.
-- Hospital staff elected Dr. Sia Shahriari to serve as chief of staff at GRMC
-- A $70,000 trauma grant, to be split between both facilities, has been awarded and is being used to purchase stretchers, monitors and other equipment
-- SMC had its first patient successfully treated through the AR Saves stroke intervention program, a 42-year-old man who was treated quickly and has already mostly recovered
--Artesian Cancer Treatment Centers are still in talks with the system over the lease of the cancer center in Blytheville; revisions to the contract are currently underway.
-- Chris Surate, an advanced practice nurse, has set up a practice in Osceola and will begin seeing patients in June; Surate and Dr. Stipanuk, the system's hospitalist, also have plans to begin seeing patients at Heritage Square Nursing Home, hopefully to reduce the number of hospital admissions from that population due to unregulated medication and other such issues
sharris@blythevillecourier.com