TCMH Continues to Provide Quality, Low Cost Healthcare

Texas County Memorial Hospital received excellent scores for managing costs associated with providing patient care, hospital board members heard from Amanda Turpin, TCMH quality director at their monthly meeting.

The MSPB (Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary) scores were just released for the January through December 2018 reporting period and TCMH received better scores than many of the hospitals in the southcentral Missouri area.

“Historically, we have always performed really well,” Turpin said. “This year was no different.”

Turpin explained that TCMH received a MSPB measure score of 0.88, which is much better than the score at both the state and national level. Missouri’s MSPB measure score came in at 0.95 followed by the national level at 0.99.

“For every Medicare patient that we treat in the hospital setting, the average spending per episode of care is $13,609.96,” Turpin said. “Despite our best efforts in managing our expenses, CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) always adjusts our MSPB dollar amount up because they compare us to other area hospitals.”

“CMS thinks that our patients are not as sick as the patients in other area hospitals due to our size, but many of them are,” Wes Murray, TCMH CEO said.

“We spend less per patient than anyone else in our immediate area because our staff manage their expenses so well, but we still provide excellent care,” Murray explained. “Even though we save the government money year after year, we still manage to get penalized for it.”

Turpin mentioned that the yearly MSPB measure scores play an active role in helping the hospital’s quarterly VBP (Value Based Purchasing) scores.

“We receive money back for obtaining good VPB scores,” Turpin said. “All of our departments play a key role in helping our hospital perform at its very best.”

Murray mentioned that the providers and staff at TCMH are crucial to helping the hospital achieve quality outcomes that lead to protecting the hospital’s bottom line.

“Thank you to all of our staff for what you do for us and this community day in and day out,” Murray said. “You are the ones that make a difference for this hospital and our patients and we couldn’t continue to offer great care without your tremendous efforts each day.”

Linda Pamperien, TCMH chief financial officer, presented the financial report for the month of June.

There were revenue challenges for the month on both the inpatient and outpatient sides.

“Overall revenues were down $671,232 in June from our budgeted expectations,” Pamperien said. “Inpatient volumes were down $201,307 and outpatient revenue was down $396,688 for the month.”

TCMH closed out the month of June with total gross operating revenue of $6,356,964.25 with net revenues after reductions and contractuals being $2,635,257.95.

TCMH ended the month of June with a negative bottom line of $220,745.77 and a negative year-to-date loss of $718,059.78.

“Our patient transfers out of the emergency department have been higher than average in recent months and it has affected our inpatient revenue,” Pamperien said. “However, our providers who admit to the hospital are right in line with where their admit numbers have been historically.”

Pamperien explained that a few providers took some time off in June which also contributed to the decreased revenue for the month.

Murray mentioned to the board of trustees that in June TCMH provided approximately 20 staff members and a couple of TCMH Auxiliary members to work at the 83^rd Annual InterCounty Picnic in Licking.

TCMH staff performed blood draws and offered free blood pressure screenings as well as educational material to those in attendance.

“Our staff performed 127 lab draws during the half-day that they were there,” Murray said. “That is exactly one more lab draw than what we performed last year.”

Murray explained that he is happy to continue to provide this service to Intercounty and the community.

“We have been offering this service there for over 30 years and we plan to continue to offer it for many more years,” Murray said.

TCMH just received a $7,500 grant from MoDOT that will enable the hospital to continue to offset the expenses from the medivan transportation services. The medivan is offered to area patients who need assistance with transportation to and from their appointments at TCMH.

“Jay Gentry is our TCMH Healthcare Foundation director and our receipt of another grant for this program is due to his efforts,” Murray said. “Jay’s work with obtaining grants for different initiatives at TCMH has been very beneficial to the hospital over the course of many years now.”

The topic of medical marijuana has been a point of conversation for many area hospitals recently due to the passing of Amendment 2 in November last year. Hospitals across the state and southcentral Missouri are working hard to address the concerns that come as a result of the passed amendment.

“We are working on a hospital wide policy to address medical marijuana,” Murray explained. “The new policy will go into effect immediately once approved, and it will address our concerns both at our main campus and our clinic locations.”

Murray mentioned that the new policy should be wrapped up sometime this fall.

Present at the meeting were Murray; Pamperien; Turpin; Doretta Todd-Willis, chief nursing officer; Rachel Davis, public relations; Matthew Brown, MD; board members, Omanez Fockler; Jay Loveland; Janet Wiseman and guest, William Mahoney, CoxHealth Representative.

Board members, Jim Perry, OD and Allan Branstetter were not present at the meeting.

The next meeting of the TCMH board of trustees is Tuesday, August 27 at 12 p.m. in the hospital board room.