Hospital’s budget gets approval

♦ Increases expected for revenue, expenditures for Polk Medical Center

The Cedartown-Polk County Hospital Authority gave their go-ahead to Polk Medical Center officials for the 2019 fiscal year budget, and they expect to do just about the same as they did this year, with some room built in for additional profits if possible.

Vice president of finance for Floyd Healthcare Management Clarice Cable provided both new numbers for the fiscal year, and as FY 2018 was coming to a close provided figures for how well the hospital has been doing this past year as well.

Board members unanimously approved a budget of $30.7 million in revenue for the coming fiscal year, with only $23.9 million expected to be spent on operations.

That will give Polk Medical Center another year of profitability at $7.4 million after adding in non-operating income from investments that is expected to come in at more than $650,000 for the year.

Breaking down the numbers further, gross revenue from in-patient and outpatient services is budgeted to come in at $114.1 million for the

but deductions from the predicted deductions totaling more than $83 million for the year will cut down how much the hospital actually takes in.

Most of the costs the hospital will incur are in employee salaries and wages, benefits and a combination of other areas like supplies, administration, and much more will add up over the coming year.

Also built into the budget are expected increases for consumers to pay when they receive a hospital bill.

“Most of that does get contractually adjusted, but we do have a little bit of an income remaining from those price increases from insurance and other payers of about 1.9 percent,” Cable said.

She explained that those figures are adjusted annually by both insurance providers and the hospital based on what companies will pay, and also due to annual rises in inflation, or the spending power of the dollar.

As far as the hospital’s bottom line goes, that means Polk Medical Center is budgeted to make an additional $589,000 in revenue.

They also expect to see the bottom line helped by the negotiated end to disagreements with Blue Cross

Blue Shield over in-network coverage from earlier in the year. Already some impact has been felt on the FY 2018 budget as new rates from the insurance provider went into effect in May.

Cable said the hospital was doing well as the year was coming to a close, with gross revenue totaling $107.1 million versus then $106.5 million that was projected when the budget was drawn up last year, and after deductions comes out to $29.1 million instead of the budgeted $28.3 million. There were some increases in hospital expenses -- $23.1 million actual versus $22.6 million – but that was made up some with the additional revenue

Increases have gone up in the amount of insurance payments as the 2018 fiscal year was drawing to a close, up 1.7 percent at 22 percent overall of where the money was coming in from. A majority of the hospital’s revenue still comes from Medicare and Medicaid payments, with less than 20 percent making up elf pay and 1.7 percent making up indigent care.

Most of the hospital’s finances both this year and in the coming budget are derived from outpatient care, which includes emergency room visits, lab work, and tests done outside of when a patient comes for at least one night of care.