GAYLE R. ROBBINS, Vincennes Sun-Commerical
grobbins@suncommercial.com
"Summertime and the livin' is easy."
Well, Rob McLin just wouldn't agree with that line, no matter how fine the vocal rendition by the great blues singer Billie Holiday.
McLin, vice president of finance at Good Samaritan Hospital, told members of the board of governors Tuesday night that while the start of the year had been "solid" financially, he didn't anticipate that trend to continue into the summer months, when traditionally things slowed down considerably.
"I think it's going to be extraordinarily hard for us to meet our (financial) goal," McLin said. "What we just have to do is make hay and hang on for the rest of the year."
McLin's analysis was that the hospital is just starting to see the impact of the economic downtown.
"The economy is really just starting to affect us, but I'm pleased to be where we are now, which is ahead of where we budgeted us to be," he said.
McLin said that for the first time in years, emergency room and outpatient visits weren't growing at the rate they had been, something he couldn't really explain.
"I don't know what's going on with that," he said. "And we're also seeing our length of stays increasing, and we didn't anticipate that."
If those patients are Medicare recipients, having them in the hospital a longer period of time hurts the hospital financially because Medicare pays a fixed amount, no matter the length of stay.
McLin also pointed out that bad debts are up - $900,000 last month.
He said hospital staff would be paying closer attention to such accounts in the future to see if there weren't programs to help those individuals with their bills. He said given the current economic conditions, it didn't make sense that the number of patients who were using such programs was down.
"I think it may be that they're eligible but there's been a lack of followup on the necessary paperwork," he said. "So we're going to be following up on our own to see who's eligible and following up."
What's helping the hospital financially is that department heads have been doing a good job on holding down expenses, McLin stated.
"Our revenue issues are being offset by the good job the department heads are doing focusing on the expense side," he said. "If we don't keep expenses down, we'll be in trouble in this economy."
McLin pointed to Dr. Mark Stutz, a specialist in hematology and oncology who had been practicing in the community for four months, whose approach to prescribing drugs for his patients was much different than past practices.
Matt Bailey, president and chief executive officer of the hospital, said Stutz's prior experience in St. Louis working within managed-care systems in which the health-care competition was more pronounced gave him a different approach to proscribing treatments.
"He's brought to us a different (health-care) regime," Bailey said. "It's more cost-conscious, both for the patient and for the hospital, while not sacrificing the quality of care."