We all want Holy Cross Hospital to succeed

There is no question that everyone, including me, in Taos County wants our hospital to not only survive but thrive. To insinuate otherwise is just wrong. However, we need to find solutions as to why these problems persist, instead of just throwing more money at the problem. Yes, rural hospitals are struggling, but we can easily identify problems here that can be fixed.

In response to last week’s “My Turn” about increasing the mill levy, let’s not compare apples to oranges. The mill levy in Taos County only covers capital expenditures for Holy Cross Hospital. Río Arriba County has a mill levy (4.25) that is for the Española Presbyterian Hospital as well as for three outpatient practices, drug treatment programs, an ambulance service and the county’s indigent fund. Española Hospital also has more services than we do (pulmonology, rehabilitation, sleep disorders and home health services). And the services at Holy Cross are, for the most part, more expensive.

Holy Cross has serious billing and reimbursement concerns. I personally received a bill five months after the services were rendered. Most insurance companies have deadlines, after which they do not have to reimburse.

In my case, Holy Cross requested that I pay 80 percent of the bill although I was not responsible for it. I protested, and three weeks later, I received the exact same bill again. How many times does this happen? How many people unknowingly pay bills that they don’t owe?

A friend of mine received services during a shoulder surgery, and then five months of physical therapy, for which the hospital never was paid, because her insurance company was not billed “in a timely manner.” Estimates are that hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably more, have been lost this way in the last year alone. This is what a cheaper, poorly implemented, inferior computer program costs us.

I would like to know what is being done to fix the coding and billing problems and what the collection rate is now, say, compared to 2015 or 2016. What is the current lag time between services and bills going out? How many bills, and at what cost, are being denied because they were not filed in a timely manner?

We have seen what lack of transparency at Tri-County has done with the sudden and unexpected closing their facility, shocking and leaving stranded both employees and clients. And they had very similar billing issues.

We do know what does not solve the problem. Bringing in inexperienced and costly travel nurses who do not know the community is not a solution.

Many of our local nurses are now in supervisory positions in Española and beyond. These nurses felt forced to leave because of questionable opportunities for advancement despite years of service, advanced training and education. Through administrative actions, they were made to feel they don’t matter.

“Warm bodies” in important positions is not the solution. Cutting services to balance the budget is not the solution. Laying off needed personal is not the answer. Changing to a cheaper computer system is not the answer, but it is part of the problem. None of this brings back our community hospital, a hospital that in the past had our support, both financially and emotionally, with our local nurses and other local professional staff.

We should consider approving a mill levy increase if the hospital does its part to increase transparency and improve on these and other issues. But let’s know exactly what we’re paying for, and decide together what it should and shouldn’t cover. Perhaps it should include mental health services, for example. But personally, I do not think the current administration has made any inroads in fixing these basic long-term problems, and perhaps a change is needed.