JCH income gets November boost

Jay County Hospital saw an income boost in November thanks to Medicaid reimbursement from the federal and state government totaling more than $1 million.
Chief financial officer Don Michael informed the Jay County Hospital board that the hospital received $1.011 million in Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital funds in November, which helped boost net income for the month to $1,140,483.
DSH payments are made to county hospitals and hospitals with a high percentage of Medicaid patients.
In May 2008, Michael told the hospital board that the DSH program was supposed to be ending, but the government has kept the program alive and continued making annual payments since that time.
And actually the hospital has been receiving more prompt DSH payments.
“Now it seems to be a lot more current,” said board president David Littler. In May 2008, the hospital received a $2.9 payment for Medicaid services rendered from 2006 through 2008. This year’s payment was for services only in 2010.
“The state had been behind but because of some feared changes in federal regulations they tried to catch up,” Michael said. “The last two years it’s been pretty reasonable.”
“Do we know at all if the DSH payments are going to continue?” asked board member Patrick Miller.
Michael said he expects the DSH program to continue at least in the short term and that the hospital may even receive its next payment early — spring or early summer next year — due to a change in the balance between reimbursement rates from the federal and state governments.
Michael explained that the federal government currently pays about two-thirds of the reimbursement while the state pays about one-third; Michael said those rates may be changing.
Since the payments typically aren’t regular and there’s no way to pin down exactly how much the hospital will get each year, the DSH monies are not figured into the hospital budget.
“We don’t budget with it,” said CEO Joe Johnston
In other business Wednesday night, the hospital board:
•Heard the auxiliary report from auxiliary president Marilyn Post. In November, 76 volunteers worked 1,470 hours.
Post also introduced the new auxiliary president for 2011, Rachel Stultz, to the board.
•Approved a contract with Blue and Company to prepare a Medicare Cost Report for fiscal year 2010 at a cost not to exceed $13,000.
•Approved an agreement, pending legal review, of the Integrated Health Plan PPO. The preferred provider organization plan will offer a 10 percent discount to plan holders.
•Approved an amendment to the hospital’s 403(b) plan to bring it into compliance with new guidelines issued by the Internal Revenue Service concerning the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 (HEART Act).
•Approved payment of 1,282 checks and disbursements totaling $2,592,697.53.
•Approved a service contract with Beckman Coulter at a cost of $7,500. The service agreement is for a blood analyzer in the hospital lab.
•Approved purchase of 30 Microsoft Office 2010 licenses from Global at a cost of $9,882. The licenses are needed because Office 2000, which is still running on some machines in the hospital, does not work in the Meditech electronic medical records system being implemented in the hospital.
•Approved release of $100,000 from the Meditech project budget to cover expenses to be incurred during the next three months.
•Approved a renewal with Citizens Groups for dental insurance at a cost of $169,630. Half the premium cost is paid by the employees.
•Approved a renewal with Gerber Life Insurance for health insurance at a cost of $344,658. Human resources director Jerry Bozell said 66 new people were brought into the hospital’s coverage in 2010, meaning the premium rate is only increasing about 2.8 percent per person. Bozell said he was “expecting a lot higher” rate.
•Approved an exclusion to the hospital health insurance plan regarding surrogate mothers.
The exclusion states that if a hospital employee becomes pregnant as a surrogate mother, the family receiving the child will be responsible for the medical costs, not the surrogate’s insurance.
•Approved a change in the paid time off policy regarding holidays. Previously holidays were automatically deducted and paid out of an employee’s annual PTO allowance. The change makes it so that employees must request to be paid for off holidays.
•Approved bonuses for the administrative staff totaling $9,775.
•Approved four appointments and reappointments to the hospital’s active and courtesy staffs.
•Adopted the medical staff bylaws and rules and regulations. The documents need to be reviewed and adopted every three years.
•Heard an update on the Meditech installation from Johnston, detailing how the financial services portion of the system has been implemented.[[In-content Ad]]