The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON—Columbia County Health System officials are working to shore up the system’s finances, which have been negatively impacted due to preparations required for a possible COVID-19 surge.

There has been a loss of revenue from a decrease in clinic visits and fewer inpatient and outpatient therapies that depend on lab tests, x rays and other imaging services.

In spite of that, CCHS Controller Tom Meyers had some good news to report to the Hospital District Board of Commissioners in April.

He said the Columbia County Health System has received a much-needed infusion of cash through a $142,857 award from the state Health Care Authority, and an early dispersal of funds from the Day Estate amounting to $87,048. Those coupled with good business collections in January and February, have contributed to a positive bottom line in March.

Additionally, days of operational cash on hand rose from 13 in February to 31 in March, he said.

While the news was good for March there will be financial challenges going forward.

“We know we are in a downward slope in the coming months,” Meyers said.

“We are working a lot of angles, on the funding side of this, every which way we possibly can,” said CCHS CEO Shane McGuire.

McGuire said the Health System administrators engage with state legislators every week to see what can be done to stop the bleed.

In April CCHS received a $654,993 award from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. This was part of the initial 30 million distributed out of the 100 million set aside for hospitals from the first federal stimulus package, McGuire said.

More funding is expected out of that package, but how much won’t be known until it lands in the bank, he said.

McGuire said a $122,000 payment received in April from Proshare, a Medicaid supplemental payment program, for the nursing facility is also helpful.

Finance Manager Matt Minor said long-standing negotiations with Molina Healthcare have been fruitful. The CCHS Revenue Team will be able to reprocess any swing bed claims received within the last 24 months. Swing bed care is one of the biggest revenue-generating services for CCHS.

“We expect to receive $500,000 for those claims,” Minor said.

Administrators have also pursued a loan from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). The almost five-million-dollar loan will be used strictly as an emergency fund, according to Minor.

The loan comes with interest deferred after a year has passed, but it should be paid off by then, Minor said.

“We don’t want to be dipping into it unless we absolutely have to because we know it is a loan,” he said.

McGuire agreed, “All they are doing is fronting the money based on the previous year’s business.”

He reminded the commissioners it took almost a year to pay CMS the $800,000 that was owed by the Health System, in 2019.

Small Business Administration loans through the federal stimulus package are also being considered, although it is up in the air whether health systems meet SBA requirements, said McGuire. Banner Bank officials have said CCHS would be first in line to apply for the next round of funding, when the portal opened on April 27.

Health System administrators are also working to recoup some of the losses through FEMA’s COVID-19 emergency fund.

During their meeting, the Board of Commissioners approved a three-year contract, not to exceed $30,000, between the Health District and Hagerty Consulting. Hagerty Consulting is an emergency management consulting firm, which will work with CCHS to prepare a claim and work through the process with FEMA.