Hospital board discusses employee retention

At the October 26, Hot Springs Health board meeting, CEO Margie Molitor said in the growth report, that they are excited, they added two permanent positions to our senior leadership roster. Verlene Luna has been the interim chief physician clinical officer and has accepted the position permanently. Also, Scott Alwin accepted the position as the chief clinical officer, and he will start on December 13. 

Molitor continued and said they are expanding their Riverton hours to add a half day on Wednesday. This now means Riverton is open three days a week and Shoshoni two days a week.

For orthopedics, they continue to look for either a permanent, full-time position that they will share with Worland or other options. Molitor has spoke to Premiere Bone and Joint out of Laramie. They are interested in doing a clinic here every other week to complement Dr. Francisco, who is here every other week. 

Molitor said, “We are working very hard to try to be the employer of choice in health care. With any job, it’s hard to find qualified employees and keep them. Health care is not different and maybe even more challenging. We have looked at our call pay and raised our call pay from $3 an hour to $5 an hour so that we’re competitive and actually lead, so people want to come work for us if they’re going to have to be on call.”

“We also are doing another round of retention bonuses for our employees that have worked at least 24 hours a week. So they got a retention bonus on their checks last week for the quarter of July through September. And if they continue to work 24 hours a week, October through December, they will get another retention bonus in January. And that’s in addition to other retention bonuses we have given prior to that. It’s important that we keep our people here.”

Megan Olsen is presenting to Rotary on November 30. Molitor said, “If there are any other service organizations or anyone that would like to learn more about the Rural Training Track residency program, Megan is very happy to come out and do a presentation.”

Molitor also announced, “It’s time again to start interviews for the Rural Training Track applicants. It’s time to find the third resident that will start next July. And we had about 300 applications again.”

“We have a very highly sought-after residency program because they learn how to be an excellent rural physician when they’re done.”

For the medical staff report, Doctor Hallie Bischoff said that “things are going well in the clinic,” and that there is more organization. One of their goals has been to do Medicare annual exams that focus on preventative health care. Bischoff added, “I think in the US, we don’t do a great job at preventive health care, partly because there are no incentives to do that and partly because insurance doesn’t always pay well for that. But Medicare will pay for an annual exam once a year. And so we talk about getting upgraded with mammograms, with paps, with colonoscopy, labs, vaccinations, prostate checks and bone densities.”

Bischoff continued and said they have increased the number of people that are being seen in a day and trying to maximize if someone calls for cancelation. They get called back and see if they can get rescheduled or ask “what’s going on?”

Bischoff also provided an update on vaccination recommendations that have changed regarding boosters. For both Pfizer and Moderna, the eligibility for the boosters are those 65 years and older, residents of long-term care settings aged 18+, those with underlying medical conditions and those who work or live in high-risk settings. Also, for both Pfizer and Moderna, the timing of the boosters is at least six months after completion of the primary series. However, for Johnson and Johnson, the eligibility is simply for all individuals aged 18+ and their timing is at least two months after the completion of the primary series. Booster options are Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, or a half-dose of Moderna.

Bischoff said she has seen the local Covid numbers have gone down, but she said there’s still a risk.

In the quality report, Miranda Nelson said that they are still working on making sure their policies are updated and on SharePoint by the end of this year. They also went over their readmission goals, which are “a little bit high right now on that, but we are going to put some more services into place.”

Margie Molitor added to the quality report and said, “We did cancel our Lab Well for this week and ongoing until we can get more tubes.” There is a national shortage of blue and green tubes used for blood draws and lab work. The labs will only be done for their own patients. Molitor said, “We have enough to take care of our patients. We just don’t want to expend more than we have to until we know we’re going to get a supply. And this is not just us, it’s all over Wyoming.”

For the financial report, Shelly Larson said the hospital and clinics had a busy month in September. The days in accounts receivable decreased by about one and a half days, down to 55 days. Combined, the hospital and clinics collected $2.8 million during the month. Larson said, “which is phenomenal, and of that amount, we were able to take and apply $385,000 to our Medicare accelerated loan payments because that is the terms we have to abide by. But that’s huge. Because of the higher volumes, we didn’t see the drop that we would have expected in the accounts receivable. We’re still seeing our 30 days of aging increase and that’s just because of volumes. This month they were just right at $195,000.” 

Larson also reported they continue to do work with Extend, an outside agency that deals with accounts that are over 120 days. The hospital’s contract with Extend term completes at the end of November. Larson said, “They’ve been very successful.”

Days cash on hand decreased from 164 days in August to 162 days in September. This was primarily due to the fact that they funded the repayment of $385,000 in Medicare accelerated.