Hospital continues improvements

The July 20 regular meeting of the Hospital Commission held updates from CEO Tiffany Means on the hospital’s efforts to fix financial reporting, revenue cycle, and patient experience. The meeting was split between a brief workshop on the financial position on the hospital and the regular meeting with Means’ CEO report covering similar items.

In midyear performance of the hospital, revenue performance is at $5,642,467.65 with an estimated operating expense of $3.6 million. Current cash is at $3,514,149.74 with a gross accounts receivables at $7,928,403.70. Both Means and CFO Doug Hoban mentioned that revenue cycle was still being repaired as well as that there had been issues with reimbursement denials, though Means said they had hired an employee who specializes in handling those denials  and ensuring the hospital receives money for services. Both Means and Hoban also said the new chargemaster is under review and would hopefully be complete by mid-August.

Means said the hospital had reduced operating expenses by an estimated $95,000 per month and that she and Doug were still working through vendor contracts that had not been updated in years. Those un-updated contracts, she said, were a main cause of reimbursement denials for the hospital.

On July 14, the hospital completed its move to a hybrid emergency department, meaning the hospital both offers emergency room services as well as urgent care. Means said that Emergency Department growth had increased by 36.5 percent year-to-date as well as EMS arrivals by 105 percent. She said that compared to last year that average ER stay had decreased from 163 minutes to 148 minutes and since Survival Flight had begun operation from the hospital in May that they had served in 94 regional dispatch requests and 37 completed flights. The UAMS mobile women’s health clinic also has doubled number of patients seen in June.

Means briefly explained the process of how a patient is evaluated for ER or urgent care treatment under the new guidelines as a hybrid facility before going into other facility updates including that chemistry and hematology analyzers had been installed in the lab and were being validated for use.

The hospital has also hired two registered nurses and a radiology tech and hiring for a full time RN and one PRN RN was begun in July.