Samaritan Healthcare finishes 2022 with a profit

MOSES LAKE — Thanks to a good month for revenue in December – partly due to a one-time payment – Samaritan Healthcare finished 2022 with a small profit.

“We’ve been able to finish off pretty well with revenue,” Samaritan Chief Financial Officer Alex Town said. “For the year to date, we are up 7% (above the budget projection), which is pretty phenomenal for the organization.”

Town said Samaritan finished 2022 with a net income of about $799,000. That was in comparison to a net income of about $4.43 million at the end of 2021. As of November, the health district was operating at a loss, but the last month of the year changed that. December net income was about $958,500, Town said, which included a Medicare payment of about $954,000.

Town presented the year-end financial report at the regular meeting of the Samaritan board Tuesday.

Town said the hospital and its two clinics are busy, generating about $392.7 million in gross revenue – about $26 million more than projected in the 2022 budget.

However, while revenue is higher, so are expenses, he said. Expenses for 2022 were about $143.3 million, about 4% above the budget projection.

A lot of the extra costs were driven by the need to hire temporary workers, he said. Samaritan paid about $10.8 million for temporary workers in 2022, about $7.5 million over the budget projection.

Employee benefits also contributed to the increase in expenses, he said. They were about $143.4 million for 2022, about 4% above the budget projection.

A lot of the increase in temporary worker costs was due to the need to hire temporary nurses, Town said.

Board member Tom Frick asked how Samaritan officials tracked temporary workers, and the ongoing expense.

Town said the responsibility had been left to individual departments, but that Chief Human Resources Officer Steven Brooks had consolidated the process so that all requests now come through the HR office.

“We had about 90 different (temporary worker) agencies,” Brooks said.

That variety makes it difficult to track, Town said.

Streamlining the process may yield lower costs, but that it would take time, nor is that the ultimate solution, Town said.

“It comes down to finding permanent employees to replace the temporary manpower we have in place,” Town said. “That’s just going to take time. That’s something (Brooks) is working on this year to see what we can do, and keep our (compensation) competitive to make sure our employees don’t leave. There are some opportunities there to reduce some expenses.”

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.