Montrose - Daily Press

Don Gladwell
Montrose, former MMH Trustee

Your local Montrose Memorial Hospital is doing well. I am just finishing 12-plus years on the Board of Trustees and I am confident that the institution is well managed with staff and physicians second to none.

The hospital’s finances are in order. The annual net operating budget is some $64 million. All of this revenue comes from hospital operations, none from county property taxes. Any debt that the hospital incurs is not a general obligation of the county, but is the sole responsibility of the hospital to be repaid only from hospital revenues, never from tax dollars. County sales taxes supply $400,000, that is passed through to Columbine Management, LLC to support outlying clinics. The hospital is self-supporting. This is not the case for most community hospitals that rely on taxing districts. As a matter of fact, MMH is entitled to a 3 mil tax levy that it has not received since the early 1990s when those public hospital mils were taken into the county general fund. This would amount to about $1,600,000. Since the hospital gets only $400,000, it could be argued that the hospital actually contributes about $1.2 million annually to the county coffers.

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Over the last 10 years, the hospital has always shown reasonable profits of 3% to 5% of net revenues. 2007 was the only year we lost money (about 1%) but I like to look at trends over the long term. The hospital made budget in 2008 and is on track for 2009. We maintain over 100 days of operating cash in reserves and by industry standards this should keep the hospital in a position to weather most any storm that comes its way. Overall, the financial trends are positive. There are rumors that the hospital is going broke. That is simply not true.

The hospital has a very high degree of oversight from numerous agencies such as the Joint Commission, Medicare, Medicaid, the Colorado Department of Health, independent auditors and many others. The administration, the Board and the physicians take these reviews very seriously and look at any deficiencies as opportunities to improve. Overall the oversight entities tell us that the hospital is well above average in complying with all healthcare guidelines.

The hospital now has a full seven member Board of Trustees. Industry surveys of best performing hospitals show that the average tenure of board members should be 8-9 years. The learning curve is very steep. We have only two members that have been on longer than one year. Nevertheless, we have a good Board and an extremely competent new CEO, Dave Hample. They just need time to begin to learn and work together. Most importantly, they need support from the community. The hospital is far from perfect. Take them your concerns, suggestions, and questions. Things can only get better if we all pull together.

The overall outlook for the hospital is very bright. There are six to eight new physicians scheduled to come to our community bringing new specialties and services by the end of the year. Current physicians are seeing better communication with the administration and Board. New technology is being discussed that will allow even more physician recruitment resulting in new medical treatments right here in Montrose.

Some will say that this optimistic report is just proof that the Board and administration are out of touch. All I can tell you is that I have honestly tried to do my best for the hospital over the last 12 years. I have spent many, many hours trying to understand this complex business and it is my opinion that we are very fortunate to have such a fine hospital that is self-supporting and not a tax drain on our community. Many other towns our size are not so lucky. We should do all we can to support our local doctors and hospital.

 

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