HOSPITAL UPDATE

There is a lot happening at the Hospital District this month most of it surrounding the use of the Provider Relief Funds (PRF) we received. The Hospital District received just over $3.4 million in PRF money through the CARES Act. We had planned to use this money to improve the electrical infrastructure, upgrade the heating and cooling, and construct an addition for a CT scanner. Unfortunately, the restrictions the government put on the use of those funds made this impossible. We have to use all other available funding prior to using the PRF money. Medicare pays us based on cost and must be considered before using PRF money. For a large project, Medicare would pay for a large percentage but over the depreciation period meaning we would need to front millions of dollars while we waited for Medicare to pay is back. We will not be able to use of all the money because of this but have found some great projects that we can complete:

• Staff all received hazard pay for the work they are doing through the pandemic. Medicare will pay for a portion of this, and the rest is covered by the PRF money. This is not using any hospital revenue or levy money.

• We are adding ultrasound! This project has been in the works for a few months, and we hope to be ready for patients by the end of July. This will provide a great service to the community and provide a good revenue stream for the hospital. Ultrasound is one of the best options for visualizing the lungs for someone with COVID-19, so the ultrasound machine qualifies for PRF money use.

• We are updating our emergency room. We will be adding glass partitions to create two separate spaces for improved infection control. Each space will have its own sink and workstation. We will also be redoing the floor in the emergency room and adjacent hallway. PRF money and Medicare will completely cover the cost of this project as well.

• We are upgrading to a newer larger lab machine. The new machine will be able to do COVID tests as well as significantly expand the number of tests we can run in house. This will again improve our services to the community and help grow the hospitals revenue while not costing us anything thanks to PRF money.

• We are able to pay the county and Garfield County Fire District for their services at our COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics. This will keep some of the PRF money local while not costing the district anything.

• We are purchasing a new washer and dryer for patient's personal laundry. Washing is essential to infection prevention, so this too counts for PRF use.

• Lastly, we are combing through all our expenses through the pandemic to see what qualifies for PRF money use. We hope to be able to capture and reimburse ourselves for a significant chunk of expenses.

In total we will be spending roughly $1.5 million on projects and COVID related expenses. The PRF money will cover about $790,000 of the and Medicare will pay for the rest. We are excited about these awesome improvements we are able to do to the facility and our service lines.