MORGANTOWN — Last July, The Dominion Post reported that Mon Health Medical Center had suspended employee raises for a year, in conjunction with a review of compensation programs and an Operations Improvement Plan launched to address financial challenges.
Then in August, the newspaper reported that the Mon Health System finished Fiscal Year 2018 $26.5 million in the red.
“This organization went through some difficult times,” Interim President and CEO Tom Senker said at the time. The red figures were due in large part to planned growth through acquisition of physician services, increased salary costs, the hiring of four cardiologists who couldn’t start work for a year because of non-compete clauses from their old employer and the expense of building the new buildings just off W.Va. 705.
This past week, Mon Health President and CEO David Goldberg had a new message. “It’s a very positive story. We’ve turned the tide.”
Goldberg offered some numbers and some illustrations to tell the story of the turnaround.
System-wide, operating income for the month of April exceeded budget by $680,000 and the same period of 2018 by $3.9 million. The system saw a 10.2% increase in net operating revenue and 2.6% reduction in operating expenses year over year.
Meanwhile, he said, patient experience is still staying at top quartile and decile levels, with the cath lab at the 99th percentile in patient experience.
The system, he said, is making more money on the top line and reducing expenses on the bottom line.
And those raises? They put a one-time pay award in place for May. “We turned the tide, and we were able to give people based on their work hours an adjustment.” On top of that, the board this past week approved raises across the enterprise for Fiscal year 2020, which begins July 1.
Part of the system’s reduced costs, Goldberg said, is due to salaries and benefits coming in $2.1 million below budget.
There had been an imbalance: Staffing was higher than what the patient census called for. They had some personnel reductions. But that’s reversed, too.
From March through August, they are hiring 80 nurses, and more nursing and clinical assistants. At the main hospital, Mon Health Medical Center, they put in more than $600,000 in pay adjustments to stay at market rate.
They’re also growing their physician base, where appropriate and where it won’t needlessly duplicate services available across the street at WVU Medicine. They’ve added another cardiothoracic surgeon and are adding a vascular surgeon.
Patient volumes are up anywhere from 4% to 13% across the system, Goldberg said: outpatient, surgery, emergency room.
ER visits had taken a dip, tied to patients seeking quicker, less expensive care at Wedgewood and MedExpress, he said. But in the last five months there’s been an upswing in ER visits, bucking the national trend.
The ER patient population is changing, he said, with people turning to primary and urgent care for less serious conditions. “We’re seeing sicker patients come to use the ER, which is what you want, and they’re actually being admitted into the hospital. Admission rates from the ER to inpatient status are about 23-24%.
The other two hospitals are also seeing patient growth. Preston Memorial has seen 15 percent growth in visits to physician clinics while surgeries, mostly orthopedic, have also increased.
Stonewall has added a new OB/GYN physician and is seeing three to four more newborn deliveries per month. Since it averages about 300 deliveries, per year, “that’s a significant increase.”
What’s turning the tide, especially in terms of patient visits? “I think we’re telling our story after the last couple years,” Goldberg said. With the new doctors and new hospital affiliations, “I think we’re a choice destination.”
When he arrived last October, the 189-bed hospital’s daily census was 60-70. Now it’s 130-150, and the new long-term acute care center opening inside the hospital will occupy 25 of its beds.
On May 28, Becker’s Healthcare – the prime source for national medical news – reported that Mon Health saw it’s Fitch’s bond rating drop from A- to BBB+. Goldberg acknowledged the downgrade but put it into context.
The rating, he said, comes with a stable outlook. Financial experts will say it takes 14 to 36 months to see the yield on the kind of investments that affected Mon’s figures last year. Referring back to all the recent growth, he said, “We’re starting to see that.”
Goldberg said the system’s self-insured employee health plan remains solid. The plan is picking up much of the out-of-pocket instead of passing along price hikes.
Of course, prescription costs continue to be the top cost item. Mon Health Medical Center will be opening its own retail pharmacy inside the hospital, he said. Employees and patients being discharged will be able to take advantage of it.
And Mon Health boosters continue to boost through philanthropy. Goldberg noted a recent $100,000 bequest and a gift of proceeds from a property estate sale.
Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp or email dbeard@dominionpost.com
