TRMC adopts 2009 tax rate and budget
By LYNDA STRINGER - Tribune City Editor
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 10:47 AM CDT
The board of managers of Titus Regional Medical Center adopted a lower tax rate for 2009 and set its new budget for the coming year at its regular monthly meeting Monday night.
The tax rate was set at 12.87 cents per $100 valuation, down from 13.08 cents.
Chief Financial Officer Duane Shafer told the board members the hospital's operating revenue is estimated to total $66.59 million for 2008 with $66.16 million in operating expenses.
With a total of $6.3 million in total non-operating revenue, including $3.2 million in tax revenue and $2.4 million in foundation donations, excess revenue over expenses for the year will be $6.7 million.
Based on the 2008 estimate, Shafer said the 2009 operating budget was set at $6.9 million, an increase of 2.4 percent.
Unfunded care, Shafer reported, is estimated at $15.46 million for the 2008 fiscal year, a figure that is expected to continue to soar, possibly to $20 million next year. Shafer reported earlier that 22 percent of patient accounts are considered bad debt.
In an effort to curb the losses from bad debt – and send a strong message to patients – the hospital board adopted a new accounts receivable policy.
Under the current policy, when a patient account goes through the hospital's collection cycle and there has been no payment activity, it goes to a debt collection agency, but is not reported to a credit reporting bureau.
"The collection agencies work those with letters and telephone calls, but that's all they can do," Shafer said.
With the new policy, which begins today, when the unpaid debt gets to a collection agency, they will be able to update the patient's credit history and the bad debt will be reflected in their credit report.
Shafer said the practice is something that most businesses and hospitals already do.
"We did a survey of all the hospitals in this area and everyone else is doing this, but us, so we're updating our policy. It's just a good business practice," he said.
While the hospital is taking the step to try to reduce the amount of money it has to write off in unfunded care each year, Shafer said he isn't sure yet how much of dent the policy will make.
"We won't know the answer to that for several more months out, but it will have some impact," he said.
In other financial matters, Shafer reported 112 births, 539 admissions, 438 surgeries and 1,822 emergency room visits in September.
The number of surgeries increased by two percent from last year, while births increased four percent and ER visits were up by six percent.
