Roosevelt hospital facing added expenses

PORTALES — Roosevelt General Hospital was profitable last financial year. But with recent litigation, it’s facing a more complicated tax process moving forward with some added expenses.

The RGH Board of Trustees reviewed its 2018-2019 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, during its monthly meeting on Tuesday.

RGH had a positive operating cost of $400,000 before receiving its yearly gross receipt tax (GRT) funds and a total net income of $1.9 million after receiving the annual funds, officials said.

GRT is collected on most sales in the county throughout the year and 0.5 percent of that is given to the hospital to fund buildings and equipment.

Starting this year, the hospital will start paying into the GRT itself on a monthly basis starting in August due to a law passed last spring that all public, non-profit and government hospitals will need to apply GRT on their monthly receipts.

RGH’s first filing under the new rules was for roughly $22,000, but that won’t be reflected on its monthly expenses until August.

For July, the first month of its new fiscal year, RGH was $27,000 in the red after paying out its annual quality and routine quarterly provider bonuses in.

This change will not affect the clinic and people who go there won’t be charged more, RGH Chief Executive Officer Kaye Green said.

“We’re still working through some issues and we’ve got some questions still,” Green said. “The tax and revenue at the state don’t understand the business of healthcare and our contractual agreements that don’t let us accurately estimate how much we’ll have coming in.”

RGH intends to ask for a managed audit this year to help determine what taxes are owed, which will also give the hospital a grace period if any errors are found up to that point.

Other highlights from Tuesday’s meeting include:

• Construction of RGH’s new emergency department is on track after being approved by the Roosevelt County Commission on Aug. 13 and the board expected to close on the loan with Yucca Telecom and Roosevelt County Electric Co-op on Aug. 30.

Doug Stone was appointed from the board to oversee the selection of construction management, architects and other related services to later present to the board.

Green said RGH will likely select FBT Architects and then solicit proposals from different construction management firms.

• The board reviewed plans to sell property for the development of a senior assisted living community on the east side of the hospital. It discussed two options for a plot of land on the northeast corner of the appointed land, which is smaller than the previously approved space.

The board selected the Alternate 1 option to create an activity yard and two assisted living buildings in the space. It approved an action to amend the original proposal to reduce the plot of land from 7 acres to 2.5 acres.

“We’re preserving the rest of this land right now. We want them to build one or two homes (in this area) and if they want to build more in the future, we would come back and sell additional land,” Green said.

RGH also received roughly $250,000 from Air Methods, the hospital’s air transport service, to add a helipad and hangar to the grounds as part of the expansion project.

• RGH selected a phone service vendor, Responsive Services International based out of Lubbock, to upgrade its phone system.

According to Green, the hospital will first need to upgrade switches and internet services before it can make the full transition and has already ordered the necessary components.

“We don’t have any analytics in our current system,” Green said. “We don’t have call volumes in specific areas and can’t pinpoint problems when they occur. We’ll have analytics with this system, which can tell peak volume and let us shift resources to accommodate those phone calls.”

• RGH will be recognized by the New Mexico Hospital Association (NMHA) as one of the top five best-performing community hospitals in the state. An award will be given to the hospital at the NMHA’s annual meeting on Sept. 25.

• Renee Rice was selected to be medical staff services coordinator, while Alyssa Callejo began working as the new director of dietary services. RGH has also started interviewing candidates for a chief quality officer.

• The RGH Foundation will hold its annual skeet shoot at Idsinga Dairy on Sept. 24 and RGH will hold its Fall Health Fair on Oct. 5.

The board moved the date of its next meeting to Sept. 23 from Sept. 24 before adjourning.