GRMC continues growth financially from last year

Graham Regional Medical Center experienced its second straight month of positive financials as they continue to perform better than last year, but stay in the red for the year.

GRMC CFO Jeff Casbeer gave the financial statement for the month of August, during the Sept. 17 hospital board meeting.

The CFO said the hospital had an operating income of $44,000 compared to a $344,000 net income for the previous month. He said the hospital had a net income of $18,000 which is above budget by almost $91,000.

For the hospital’s fiscal year, which begins in October, GRMC has a net loss of around $528,000. This sets the hospital on pace to have a net loss of approximately $572,000 which would be better than last year’s loss of $1,498,656. However, the approved 2019 budget for GRMC projected the hospital to have a positive bottom line of $19,209.

“Point of service cash in the hospital was $68,802 and as a whole organization, we collected a little over $74,000,” Casbeer said. “That is the most we have collected as an organization in all the time that we have tracked that. So the staff is doing a really good job.”

He said the hospital’s volumes decreased slightly with admissions dropping from 54 to 44, emergency room visits were down eight and outpatient visits were down 12, if not including health fair visits. However, he said surgeries did increase from 83 to 89.

The CFO said the hospital has about $2.2 million, or about 40 days worth, of cash on hand. He added it costs $54,000 per day to run the hospital. He said the hospital experienced a total cash influx of $1,520,000 which was partially impacted by a $93,000 loan for new sterilizers. He said September is projected to increase to about $1,900,000.

“However, so we all know, there are loan and restricted donation amounts in that of $830,000, $93,000 and $323,000,” Casbeer said. “The $323,000 is a donation to pay for capital equipment that we have talked about from Bruce and Alice Anne Street. The $830,000 was the intergovernmental transfer for uncompensated care and the $93,000 was the sterilizers.”

He said bad debt for the month was about $484,000 which is consistent with the last five months, but about $119,000 above budget.

Casbeer said expenses were above budget by about $86,000 with a large portion due to the addition of salaries from new services being offered and cost of drugs rising.

He said there is 147.5 full time employees which amounts to 4.64 full time employees per occupied bed and if including whole organization minus clinics the number drops to 3.82. Casbeer said the goal is to get the number to 3.75 full time employees per occupied bed.

Endeavor Healthcare, the hospitals management company, President Curtis Rojas gave a revenue cycle update to the board. Board member Doctor Donald Behr questioned Rojas as to why the gross days in accounts receivable grew to for the 58 as a system and 55 as a hospital from 51 and 46 last year.

“Part of that reason is we had to do some new pricing adjustments through the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield contract,” Rojas said. “Our overall charges is a little bit higher than what they were last year so the AR is a little bit higher than last year.”

Rojas added that net days account receivable would be a better indicator of how long it takes the hospital to get paid on their charges. He said the net days account receivable is 37 days which they said the benchmark was 45 days or less.
The hospital board will receive their month of September, the last month of the fiscal year, financial update during the October board meeting.

For the rest of the story, see the Wednesday, Sept. 25 edition of The Graham Leader.