Alva Review-Courier -

During their meeting Tuesday, April 26, the Alva Hospital Authority trustees approved the purchase of an almost new van for the Homestead. During budget discussions last year, Parker said he hoped to obtain grants to buy vans for the nursing home, the hospital and the Homestead.

When the grants didn’t materialize and Share Convalescent Home’s old van became unreliable, Parker found a used wheel-chair accessible van that would fit their needs. The nursing home had the funds for the purchase.

Tuesday, Parker said the Homestead’s 2005 Lincoln Town Car was becoming unreliable. Sometimes doors or the trunk became stuck. So he started looking for a replacement. He contacted both local car dealers.

Parker said the local dealers were very helpful, even letting them take vehicles to the Homestead so residents could check them for comfort and ease of entry. He said a 2020 Chrysler Pacifica van from Windy Ford was the most highly rated after the tryouts. The Homestead has the funds to pay for the van not to exceed $34,600.

Trustees approved the purchase of the van. They also declared the 2005 Lincoln to be surplus so it can be either traded in on the van or sold by sealed bid.

Trustees present for the meeting were Chairman Jason Gaisford, Dr. Halah Simon, Dr. Bo Hannaford, Dr. Ken Brown, Dr. Scott Burk and Greg Bowman. Jay Randals was absent.

CEO Report

In addition to her written report, Share Medical Center CEO Kandice Allen said the hospital is still in talks with the Duncan hospital regarding the Meditech project.

A kick-off meeting will be held with BKD next week. The hospital has hired BKD to analyze their accounts receivable for ways to improve the process. BKD also does the hospitals annual audits.

“We think it is getting better,” Allen said of working with TruBridge, the company handling the hospital’s billing. After difficulties over the past two years, she said the staff thinks the new account manager from TruBridge is doing a good job. “Hopefully that will continue in a positive direction,” she said.

On Wednesday, May 4, the trustees and hospital administrators will be meeting a possible new surgeon. Two meetings have been set up with trustees scheduling times so they don’t form a quorum or majority which would violate open meeting laws.

Later in the meeting while talking about quality control, Allen talked about the value of SQSS (Strategic Quality Support System) to the hospital. The hospital has had the program for about five years. She said it has been very helpful in meeting goals of quality care for patients. Recently the hospital added maintenance and IT to the system. Any requests for maintenance or IT assistance are entered into SQSS. If not resolved in a specified period, the department head and Allen receive an email reminder.

Allen said SQSS “helps keep employees on task with the thousands of things they deal with.” They are now adding in policies and procedures so they can keep track of those.

Financial Reports

Share CFO Chris Lauderdale said he hopes when BKD is on site next week they will be able to help figure out what’s going on with accounts receivable. He said the balance is too high, and the unbilled patient days are too high. Share Medical’s accounts receivable balance for March was $6,470,117, a decrease of $162,704 from February.

Hospital gross patient revenue for March was $1,634,801, which was a $91,320 increase compared to the prior month. Total patient days for March were 62 compared to 122 in February. Total clinic office visits for March were 1,516 compared to 1,393 in February.

Salaries and wages were up for the month, but Lauderdale said several bonuses were paid for achieving goals. The hospital had a net profit for March of $1,540,829.

Lauderdale said he did a cost settlement report for CMS in March that totaled $550,000 which was to go toward the advance given by Medicare during the pandemic. Only $180,000 was needed to pay off the advance so the remainder will be coming to the hospital.

Turning to the financial report for Share Convalescent Home, Lauderdale said the nursing home is still benefitting from OHCA quarterly payments that began during the pandemic. Gross patient revenue for the month was $249,406 which was an increase from February of $38,223. Total patient days for March were 1,170 compared to 1,044 in February.

Operating expenses excluding salaries, benefits and depreciation totaled $81,944, a decrease of $192 from February. Salaries and wages for March were $174,686, a decrease of $5,762 compared to the prior month. The convalescent home had a net profit for March of $22,472.

The Homestead had a net profit of $8,641 for March compared to $14,076 in February.

Share Convalescent Home

Share Convalescent Administrator Kelly Parker reported after several changes the census has “kind of leveled out” at the nursing home. He said the current number of residents is 37, but they would like to have 40.

The MDS (minimum data set) coordinator resigned, and so far they have been unable to recruit a qualified and experienced nurse for this position. Director of Nursing Teirna Adair has been performing those duties in the interim. An MDS (minimum data set) coordinator is a specially trained, licensed nurse who is responsible for developing care plans for elderly residential patients in nursing homes.

Parker said he has been in contact with a service that can provide a remote MDS coordinator. He said the cost would be less than hiring someone locally.

Employees of Williams Companies, an energy company, have a “give back week”, and they asked Parker about volunteer work at the convalescent home. He said six to eight volunteers from Williams scraped old paint off trim and were in the process of repainting. They also cleaned out the butterfly garden.

SMC Foundation

Parker reported the SMC Foundation received eight applications for the Alva Hospital Authority scholarships. He explained the scholarships are a minimum of $500 but the last couple of years have been $1,000. The scholarship is for the third year of college, and the student must be enrolled in a healthcare-related field of study. The applications will be made available to the trustees.