Revenue not as robust as Samaritan budget projections

MOSES LAKE — Samaritan Healthcare is making more money than it’s spending after the first four months of 2017, but it’s not making as much as hospital officials projected in the 2017 budget.

The hospital’s net income (what’s left after all revenue is recorded and expenses are deducted) was $1,296,000 for the first four months of 2017. That’s more than the same period in 2016, said interim chief financial officer Jim Heilsberg, but it’s about 15 percent below the amount projected in the 2017 budget.

Total admissions are above the budget projection, Heilsberg said, and so are total patient days (the time all patients spend in the hospital). But the hospital’s average length of stay is longer, 4.2 percent over the budget target. The hospital’s case mix, “which is our complexity of patients – how sick they are is another way to look at that,” also is playing a role, he said.

“Two-thirds of our business is Medicare and Medicaid,” Heilberg said. “Medicare and Medicaid pay based on a fixed-fee basis. You can take a day to provide the service or you could take 10 days. From their standpoint they’re looking at ‘this is what you get to provide the service.’ So efficiency becomes a very important thing to two-thirds of our business.”

The number of emergency room visits was 3.2 percent below budget projections, and the number of outpatient surgical cases was 4.2 percent below projections. That should’ve meant lower outpatient revenue, but actually revenue was higher than projections. The cases being treated were more complicated, which meant revenue was higher.

Expenses are about 3.5 percent above budget projections, and that’s mostly the result of increased staffing to treat the additional patients. “It’s difficult to get all the staff you need if you have great fluctuations in activity in a short period of time,” he said.

“We’re still making money,” Heilberg said, but not reaching the targets projected in the budget.

In answer to a question from commissioner Alan White, Heilberg said January, March and April were strong months, but February was weak.

Commissioner Joe Akers said he was concerned about a reduction in obstetrics patients, and outpatient surgical cases. Chief operating officer Teresa Sullivan said outpatient surgeries actually are ahead of the same period last year. “We’ve had a couple of surgeons leave, but we expect to start building that volume back up,” said Becky DeMers, chief nursing officer.

Obstetrics cases were down statewide, Sullivan and DeMers said.

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