PMC taking wait, see approach on BCBS deal
CEDARTOWN — The immediate impact of coming to terms with Blue Cross Blue Shield is likely to be seen in months to come, but so far Polk Medical Center is on track to only see modest profits before year’s end.
Hospital officials sat down with the Cedart0wn-Polk County Hospital Authority board ahead of the Memorial Day holiday and got to review numbers for the month of April, ahead of when the BCBS agreement was set to go into effect on May 1.
Polk Medical Center Hospital Administrator Matt Gorman said “it is still early to see the full impact of the BCBS agreement.”
Announced in the spring, the agreement between Floyd Healthcare Management and BCBS over rates that would be paid back for care at Polk Medical Center in the years following the transfer from Redmond Regional Medical Center in 2013 and the move to the new hospital required several years to work out. A lawsuit over repayments directly to patients during some of that period is still underway despite the agreement.
Officials hope that with rates being loaded into the billing system and the start of BCBS coverage becoming in-network at Polk Medical Center at the beginning of May, when the board convenes later this month they will see the start of a trend of increases in patient numbers and in-network repayments for the bottom line.
“We think we’ll get some solid numbers on where we stand here in the next few months,” Gorman said.
Increases in insurance-based payments in past months before the BCBS agreement going into effect were already responsible for some of the increase in revenue, but self pay along with Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements are also on the rise.
Driver arrested after wreck into Cedartown storefront
CEDARTOWN — A Cave Spring man was briefly behind bars after a Saturday morning wreck into a storefront on Main Street.
Assistant Chief Greg Cooper of the Cedartown Police Department reported the wreck around 2 a.m. did significant damage to the storefront at 512 Main St. after Marcus Reed, of Cave Spring, struck the building.
Reed was coming over the railroad tracks in a Chevrolet Silverado on South Main Street near the row of storefronts when he told officers he swerved, then went into southbound lane, first struck a tree and then a utility pole before running into the building.
He was not injured, Cooper said, but was taken to the Polk Medical Center emergency room to be checked out before being transported to the Polk County Jail.
Police arrested Reed on charges of failure to maintain lane, driving while license suspended or revoked and violation of conditions of a limited driving permit.
He was released on a $2,000 bond later in the morning.