Health center adopts $1.25 million budget, sets levy rate at $1.89685

The Jefferson County Health Center Board of Trustees approved the 2013 fiscal year county budget during a public hearing at its regular monthly meeting Monday evening at the health center.

The board approved a tax rate of $1.89685 per $1,000 of taxable evaluation, which will bring in an estimated $1,247,792 for the health center.

The rate is a decrease from the current $1.94323 per $1,000 taxable valuation.

Although the taxation rate is decreasing, it doesn?t mean the levy will result in fewer dollars for the health center. The total property value in Jefferson County is up about 6.5 percent, resulting in a 3.4 percent increase in value for local taxing bodies, like the health center, to levy against. The net taxable value is just under $671 million.

Compared to the tax rates of hospitals in Iowa, Jefferson County Health Center is about in the middle, said Gene Irwin, the health center?s chief financial officer.

In his regular monthly financial report to the board, Irwin said a positive for the month of January was patent days at or above budget.

For January, the health center had budgeted a total of 346 acute and skilled patient days, but it actually had 356, a positive variance of 2.9 percent.

?On an inpatient basis, it?s been a good year, a good month,? Irwin said.

The health center saw fewer surgeries, scopes, CTs and MRIs than it had budgeted for January.

According to Irwin, those numbers had been high, but now ?we?re settling down.?

Dr. Michael Greiner, a family practice physician with Medical Arts Clinic, added a part of the reason for the lower numbers of CT scans is because Title 19 and some insurance companies now require prior approval for the procedure. Greiner said it takes about a half-hour for a nurse to complete the prior approval information online. If approval is not granted, a patient can be referred to a specialist, and usually a request from a specialist is approved. But sending a patient to a specialist usually requires a trip to Iowa City for an exam and then a return trip for the test, he continued.

Greiner also said if prior approval is not given, a doctor can send a patient to the emergency room, as prior approval is not needed for a CT scan in the ER.

Irwin told the board physical therapy procedures is 6.4 percent above budget for the year, and ?the lab continue to explode.? The lab performed 21,078 procedures in January; 18,000 were budgeted, for a positive variance of 17.1 percent for the month.

?The bad news is the inpatient coders were gone in January, so the gross account receivable is up $462,791,? said Irwin, pointing out the gross account receivable was $5,250,850 as of Jan. 31.

In addition to this, there is a physician clinic account receivable of $144,822 for a total gross account receivable of $5,395,672. Total allowances were $1,449,087 for a net account receivable of $3,946,585.

?We billed quite a few claims this month,? continued Irwin.

He said a total of 3,345 claims were filed in January, with a gross value of $3,047,953. Medicare collections totaled $487,516, and Medicaid collections totaled $80,262 for the month. Total patient collections for January, including Medicare, Medicaid and physicians clinic was $1,311,341.

The net income for the health center was negative $173,136 in January, but it is still about $366,000 above where it was at this time last year when the loss on the sale of the old hospital building is taken out.