Commissioners consider Quincy hospital request

QUINCY — The Grant County Board of Commissioners are considering a request from Quincy Valley Medical Center to temporarily raise the amount of money they can borrow to pay expenses. Quincy hospital officials have asked the commissioners to raise their interest-bearing warrant capacity to $5 million.

Commissioner Cindy Carter said the request is on the commission agenda for Monday, and commissioners may make a decision on Monday. The commission and county officials asked for more information before they discuss the hospital's request.

Interest-bearing warrants are issued by junior taxing districts when they don’t have enough cash on hand to meet their obligations. The district, in this case QVMC, borrows money from the county to pay the bills, then pays the money back with interest.

Quincy hospital has been using warrants for a few years, and has struggled with cutting its accumulated warrant balance. As of Aug. 3, the balance was about $4.3 million, said Grant County Treasurer Darryl Pheasant.

Interim chief executive officer Glenda Bishop said the hospital district is switching over to a new electronic payment system, which has slowed down its payments, and as a result slowed down QVMC payments to the county.

Commissioners and QVMC officials met in July, and at that time hospital officials said they might need an extension of their warrant balance by mid-September. The hospital’s current limit is $4.5 million.

The problem with the payment system meant QVMC could hit its warrant limit by mid-August, according to a letter hospital officials sent to commissioners.

The hospital started using its new billing system in May, Bishop said. “Our deposits have been extremely slow and smaller than we anticipated, even considering that this is still the transition phase,” the letter said.

The hospital is under budget on expenses, Bishop said, and will receive money from property taxes in November. Hospital officials are concerned about possible shortfalls before November.

Currently the hospital has about $1.1 million in its accounts receivable with the new vendor, Bishop said, and about $600,000 with the previous vendor. “The revenue is there. We can see the claims,” she said.

Pheasant said one of the questions county officials want answered is how much of that $1.7 million hospital officials think can be collected.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.