Ellsworth County Medical Center received good reviews Wednesday, Nov. 20, during the annual audit report given by Tony Kruse of BKD Certified Public Accountants and Advisors of Wichita.

“Whatever you did in 2019, do it again for 2020,” he said. “You guys are going in the right direction and beating the averages.

Kruse issued a clean bill of health on the financial statements the hospital provided for the audit.

He said the medical center’s 340B drug pricing program continues to be lucrative. Kruse said the hospital has a $1 million margin on its 340B program.

“If that goes away, you can see what would happen,” he added.

In other business:

• Andrew Bair, chief executive officer, said he met the day before with representatives from the Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce with regards to the proposed building of a community building in light of the recent vote by members of the Ellsworth American Legion to move forward with the project.

“What they’re looking for from us is whether or not we’re committed,” he said. “I can’t ask you to commit to that until I know the price tag.”

Bair said 8,500 square feet of space has been reserved for an ECMC physical therapy department, which would include occupational therapy.

However, the CEO said he is concerned about events that have taken place since the legion vote. The Ellsworth City Council terminated the employment of city administrator Scott Moore at a Nov. 19 special meeting at the golf course.

“Scott was the person I was working with. I’ve got a lot of questions at this point. Where is it we go from here? I guess I’ll work with the legion people. So we’ll just have to pick up the pieces and see what this is. Scott was leading this charge.”

Moore attended the board meeting as a spectator and his wife, Tammy, is a board member.

• Bair said the hospital provides excellent service.

“The message to employees is every patient counts,” he said.

Bair said when it comes to safety, both for patients and employees, ECMC is a high quality facility.

He noted hand sanitation by hospital employees is improving. It is now between 98-100 percent.

• A review of changes to policies and procedures presented by Shamarie Farthing, director of risk, safety and quality, was approved.

• Christa Bohnen, director of human resources, said job recruitment at ECMC has been busy. She noted that 19 positions have been filled since July. Katie Malborough has been hired as the new recruiting coordinator and Tammie Buchholz has been hired as the new education coordinator.

• Steve Berkhouse, chief financial officer, said the hospital’s gross revenue from operations totaled $1,965,237. That compares to the budgeted gross revenue of $2,050,512. He said the majority of that negative variance is in inpatient and outpatient hospital revenues. Yearto-date, gross revenue is $7,390,994, which is 9.9 percent less than budgeted revenue.

Berkhouse said operating expenses for October were $1,651,453, compared to budgeted expenses of $1,495,206. Salaries and benefits make up the majority of the expense variance, he noted.

The hospital recorded a gain of $90,081 in its 340B program. The year-to-date gain for the program is $328,319.

October’s average daily patient census was 6.1, which was an increase from the 3.9 average census of patients in September. October’s patient census is also higher than the 3.9 recorded a year ago.

Berkhouse said there were a total of 1,002 outpatient visits to the hospital in October, which is slightly less than September’s total of 1,082. The Rural Health Clinic saw 1,189 patients in October compared to 1,167 in September and 1,374 in August.

• Bair said a new generator is ready for the hospital’s new Generac generator to be installed in December.

“We will experience another short power outage at that time during the switch over and will be on the old generator power,” he said.“This is expected to last less than two hours.”

"Whatever you did in 2019, do it again for 2020."
Tony Kruse
In talking about the ECMC audit