Hospital Update

Garfield County Hospital District (GCHD) is running a one-year special levy in April. The levy is for $860,000 and if approved will be collected in 2021. With all the measures being taken to stop the spread of COVID-19, there is a chance that the state could choose to cancel all April elections. There is also the possibility of the election not taking place due to staffing issues at the courthouse if COVID-19 does make it to Garfield County.

Why does GCHD need this levy? We have projected a loss of roughly $600,000 for 2020. There are several factors that play into this. First, as a small community it is difficult for us to see the patient volumes needed to generate enough revenue to fully fund operations. We continue to look for cost saving measures but feel our expenses are nearly as low as they can be without cutting any services. We also continue to see cuts to insurance reimbursements at the same time as we see an increased administrative burden to keep up with state and federal regulations. We have several strategies that we are implementing to improve our revenue.

We have hired our own ER providers allowing us to cut down on agency staffing. We have also hired a full-time physician for the clinic which should help improve clinic volumes and in turn increase lab, x-ray, and PT volumes. We are enrolling in the 340B pharmacy program which is estimated to bring in $120,000 or more each year. Lastly, we plan to move forward with a company called Allevant to help us build up our swing bed program. All of these changes will help improve our financial position but it will take time to see the full benefit. We need increased tax support to make up for our operational losses.

All small Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) like us require tax levy support. When comparing GCHD to other CAHs in Washington, GHCD is lowest in tax support received over the last three years. The same comparison also showed that we had the lowest annual expenses. Within our county, GCHD only accounts for 4% of annual property taxes.

Ballots will be mailed by April 10 and have to be received or post marked by April 28. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we will not be holding any special meetings to discuss the levy. We would invite everyone to submit any levy questions to us via email to [email protected]. We will be sharing your questions with an answer through the East Washingtonian, Facebook, and our website Pomeroymd.com.