Remodeling discussed at Samaritan Clinic

MOSES LAKE - It's in the very early stages, but Samaritan Healthcare officials are working on a plan to remodel Samaritan Clinic's first floor.

A preliminary plan was presented to a subcommittee of the hospital's board of commissioners, Chief Executive Officer Tom Thompson said at the board's last meeting. The finance committee asked for more information before forwarding a plan to the full board, Thompson said.

The idea is to make the first floor more efficient and easier for patients to navigate, he said.

In other business, Chief Financial Officer Tom Legel reported the hospital is showing a profit for 2013, making more money through the end of August than during the same period in 2012.

The hospital made a $649,752 profit in August, about 11 percent above budget projections, Legel said. For 2013 through the end of August, the hospital has turned a profit of $3.5 million, which is about 15 percent below the budget projection.

Primarily that reflects a decline in the number of tests ordered through the emergency room, Legel said. In January the hospital hired a new physician group to offer emergency room services, he said.

The hospital came from a $1.6 million operating loss in 2009 to a $4.9 million operating profit in 2012, Legel said, and is on track to finish 2013 with a profit in excess of $5 million.

Legel said the hospital's bad debt and charity care are about where the hospital projected and are going down. Currently the hospital's contractual allowance is about 53 percent, he said; the contractual allowance is the difference between what the hospital charges for services and what it actually receives in reimbursement from insurers.

Legel said a write-off of about 47 percent sounds like a lot, but that's below the national average for hospitals. In 2013 the number of patients with private insurance is up about 1.5 percent and Medicare and Medicaid patients is down about 1.5 percent, he said. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement traditionally is less than private insurers, he said.