Hospital Authority approves FY 2018 budget
Bad debts and write-offs expected to increase, but PMC planning for $6 million in profits for FY 2018
The Cedartown- Polk County Hospital Authority approved a new budget for the coming year that predicts another bump in profits for Polk Medical Center.
Board members unanimously approved the annual budget calling for $30,895,271 in revenue for the coming fiscal year that was set to start over the weekend and only $ 24,565,626 in expenditures.
That would leave the hospital with more than $ 6.3 million leftover in profit for the year, even with some price increase, getting equipment off of their annual depreciation and cutting the costs of intercompany transactions.
Clarice Cable, director of accounting for Floyd Medical Center, presented the budget to Hospital Authority board members with several items of note.
She also pointed out the hospital will also be covering some of their costs by price increases in certain areas of care.
Despite those increases, the budget still calls for $233,765 less in revenue than Polk Medical Center was expected to take in for the 2017 fiscal year that ended last Friday.
The previous year's budget had called for $31,129,036 in revenue after writing off bad debts and deductions from the hospital's annual revenue. Polk Medical Center is on track to keep to that number, with $28,822,868 in revenue generated by the end of May 2017.
That's total net revenue, which only comes into play after total patient and outpatient revenue is collected, and bad debts are paid off.
Through May 2017, the hospital had taken in a combined $99,819,482 in total revenue for the year, or a $4.2 million difference on the books in what was expected of more than $95 million in combined patient and outpatient billing.
However, $56 million of that is automatically deducted from the top, along with $14.5 million for bad debts alone.
And more than half the total revenue for the year comes from Medicare and Medicaid payments at 59.5 percent of all money coming into the hospital, compared with 61.7 percent budgeted for the year, while the rest comes from insurance coverage for local residents at 20.3 percent of the budget, and self pay options at 18.6 percent of the budget for FY 2017 before year's end.
Only 1.6 percent of revenue is generated from indigent care provided to those who come to the hospital and who can't pay.
Hospital Authority board chair Harold Wyatt asked Cable during her presentation of the numbers during their June 27 meeting if Polk Medical Center was still on track to top a budgeted figure of $3.7 million in profit for the year by ending nearly doubled that at just more than $6 million leftover after expenditures.
Cable said they would make that goal.
The final figures for how Polk Medical Center wrapped up June will likely be presented at the July meeting of the hospital authority board. They'll then go through an audit process and be presented again later in the year for final approval and give an exact accounting of how much revenue was generated, and how much money was spent.
What's important to remember about annual budgets for the hospital and other municipal authorities put together each year is that though the line items are diligently tracked and bills go out, the budgets themselves are mainly guidelines for accountants to track based on what they believe should be spent annually.
The hospital's annual budget for FY 2017 called for expenses to keep below $21.8 million, and yet more than $1 million over that as of May as $ 22.8 million.
Yet with more than anticipated amounts of revenue, they can still show a profit of $ 5.9 million thus far despite the expenses and more than $14 million in bad debts.
With the budget figures also came Hospital Administrator Matt Gorman's monthly report on patient totals at Polk Medical Center, and in one particular category those numbers have completely flat-lined.
A steady flow of surgi- cal cases have previously kept operating rooms at the hospital busy with outpatient procedures, with as many as 30 cases during August 2016 at a height of bookings for the suites.
But over the past three months, not a single surgical case has been treated at the hospital. The last cases were reported in February of this year, with three patients being treated in the surgical suites.
The number of patients in other areas of treat- ment at the hospital remained healthy through the month of May however, with 2,364 patients treated in Polk Medical Center's emergency room, 42 swing bed admissions and 68 people treated in inpatient or observation care during the month.
After the hospital approved a new budget and went over t he l atest monthly numbers, they also had a chance to approve measures that if
agreed upon by members of the Floyd Healthcare Management, Inc. board will increase the number of local board members as well.
The measure will move forward to the July meeting of board for the organization overall in Rome, then come back down to the Cedar town-Polk County Hospital Authority for final approval of resolutions allowing changes to the company and authority's bylaws.
Changes will allow the Board of Directors for Polk Medical Center Inc. to increase by three new members and the Hospital Authority Board to increase by two.
All the members will either come from Polk County or have direct links to the county, such as owning a business in Cedartown, Rockmart, Aragon or the unincorporated area. Nominating committees will determine who will be allowed to join the board. The Hospital Authority did not say whether an open application process would be taken up.
However new stipulations will be put in place for any new board members appointed to either the Hospital Authority or the Board of Directors for Polk Medical Center, Inc. Once members reach the age of 75, they are forced to retire from their seats officially.
They'll be allowed to come to meetings and follow advice as emeritus board members, but have no voting powers and won't get paid for their service. That rule will only apply to new board members, and not those currently serving on either board.
Current members and those being reappointed are grandfathered in on the new rule.