After several months of using contracted nurses to fill staffing needs, Salem Memorial District Hospital is starting to turn the corner.
Administrator Kasey Lucas told the hospital board Feb. 18 that the number of contract nurses had been reduced to five from nine. “We have hired some RNs to the floor and we are whittling that down,” he said.
SMDH has been spending around $90,000 a month on contracted nursing services in recent months. That figure was about $89,000 in January.
When asked about recruiting, Lucas said surrounding hospitals share information about their nursing struggles and what they do to attract new nurses. He said there are other options to consider to recruit and attract them.
After the meeting, he told The Salem News the hospital offers nursing scholarships and has an intern program for nursing students after their first semester. There is no obligation to hire them, but the hospital has a chance to see how they work. “With our increased volumes, we can keep those nursing students busy,” he said.
The hospital also recruits nursing schools, including SBU locally, and participates in job fairs, he said.
“In the industry you’re seeing a lot of sign-on bonuses. We haven’t done that yet,” he said. Nursing scholarship reimbursement programs are also gaining popularity. “We’ve seen a lot of that but we haven’t started that either,” Lucas said.
In her report to the board, chief financial officer Monica Stogsdill said admissions were up by 45 last month compared to the previous January. Inpatient census days were 371 with an acute care occupancy of 47.9 percent and an average of 12 patients per day. Outpatient registrations were also up from last year.
Home health visits were down with a transition underway to do more with less visits, she said. In the emergency department, there were 99 patients admitted, 40 transferred and 16 refused treatment. Stogsdill called that the lowest number of AMAs (leaving the hospital against medical advice) she’d ever seen.
On the revenue side, SMDH operated in the black last month with a $36,416 gain and also saw tax revenue of $312,053. Total patient revenue before deductions and operating expenses was $5.4 million. Payroll was just over $1 million.
Receipts included $922,723 from Medicare, $156,177 from Medicaid, $513,794 from insurance and $59,540 from self-pay. Stogsdill said Medicare receipts were about $90,000 above what they have been averaging the last six months.
Accounts receivable continued to climb, to $17.3 million in January, up $1.3 million from the previous month, with $8.8 million of those account over 90 days past due. Of the $1.3 million increase, $782,000 was in private pay, she said.
There was decrease of $324,000 in commercial insurance, but Medicare was up $196,000 and VA $390,000. “That just keeps going the wrong way,” said board member Judy Thompson. Board member Ray Bruno echoed her concerns, noting the increase from last month’s report.
Stogsdill said SMDH has now been using TruBridge, a medical services company that does billing, for about 45 days. “The processes are getting worked through. The billing is going out because it’s showing up in our cash,” she said.
Lucas said getting all accounts down to 45 days past due will take some time.
“Their thought is it will take three months to get all of the processes down, and in another three months, they should be down to 45 days on everything they’re working, which is Medicare, Medicaid, managed Medicaid, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, commercial and VA,” he said. The hospital is only billing for private pay, primarily home health and the clinic.
In other business, a flu season update showed nine cases treated in December, 28 in January and 22 so far in February. The Dent County Health Center has received reports of 94 cases to date.
In his SMDH Foundation report, chief operating officer Jason Edwards said Dancing with the Salem Stars was a success with $9,068 raised as of Feb. 18. Ten couples danced and all the floor table seating was sold, with 33 tables sponsored.
The Foundation has proposed a project to install vinyl flooring in acute care hallways that are now carpeted. “We were anticipating the cost would be a lot higher than it was, at about $40,000,” he said, but two bids were much lower. The vinyl comes in two colors of wood grain.
The recommended bid was $20,683 from McCall’s FloorMart, including materials and labor with a 15-year warranty. “It’s not budgeted but is something the Foundation definitely wanted to pursue,” he said.
Under new business, the board approved the purchase of:
• A Noah Elite bariatric bed with scale, mattress and patient helper trapeze and a 1,000-pound capacity for $6,622
• Nine Nihon Kohden vital signs monitors for $45,648 with a 4 percent trade-in on the old monitors
• A SciFit Total Body Rehab elliptical with handrails and platform for $4,861 from Performance Health
