Hospital board hears report on long-term care

By Steve Moyer

The Nevada Regional Medical Center board of directors met Tuesday evening in a short meeting. One of the first items on the agenda was bad news-good news, Moore-Few Nursing Home had a drop in volume resulting in a loss for the month of January but the drop has not been as bad as other facilities in the area.

"Moore-Few is still the most utilized long-term care facility in the area. For the past eight quarters Moore-Few has been running at 86 percent while other facilities in the state average 77 percent," said Denise Sloniker, Moore-Few administrator.

Judy Feuquay, CEO, told the board she had implemented a plan to lower accounts receivables, changing some procedures to encourage faster recovery of money due the facility. She and Farrel Offret, plant operations director, initiated a process to spread major expenditures across the fiscal year to assist in cash management planning. "This should smooth out the effect of large purchases on our cash on hand," Feuquay said.

Feuquay also spoke with the Nevada Medical Clinic Director, Dennis Fetrow, concerning the reason the board declined to participate in the search NMC was conducting for a physician and the boards willingness to participate in a future search that concentrated on a physician that would fill the needs of NRMC. "We need to get a physician that fills a need that we have instead of one that may supplement an area already covered," Feuquay said.

The board approved increasing physician compensation to expand surgical call coverage from the current 20 days a month to continuous coverage 365 days a year. Feuquay told the board that in a recent month the hospital turned away 66 patients because of no surgical service available at the time. "Those 66 patients would have paid enough to cover the cost of increasing our surgical coverage, not to mention the ancillary services the patients would have used after the initial surgery," Feuquay.

The board also voted to replace the boilers in the south tower. The cost to replace the boilers would be $160,000 to $165,000 including asbestos abatement. The cost to connect the new boilers in the north tower to the old system would be $300,000 and would still require the removal of one of the boilers in the south tower.

Feuquay noted that the method Medicare uses to pay for services is lump sum, a diagnosis of a certain condition nets the hospital a pre-determined amount, regardless of how long the patient stays in the hospital. She began implementing a case management program that is designed to improve patient service while decreasing the time a patient would spend in treatment.