New vendor to make billing calls for MMH

Melissa Memorial Hospital will soon be using an outside vendor to contact patients about outstanding bills.

East Phillips County Hospital District Board of Directors heard about the change from Chief Financial Officer David Applewood at the board’s regular end-of-month meeting Tuesday, Oct. 26.

Applewood said MMH will be making an effort to inform the community that they could be receiving calls, and he assured the board that the calls won’t be coming from overseas.

In his financial report, Applewood was excited to share that he expected MMH to receive funds for Paycheck Protection Program No. 2 forgiveness in the days following the meeting. He and his team have been working with a federal auditor on PPP and diligently prepared the extensive files requested for the audit.

For the month of September, Applewood said total revenue was $1.8 million, total expenses were $1.7 million and net income was $12,200. The year-to-date net income was $14,500 without taking into account the funds from the first round of PPP forgiveness.

Administrator reports

MMH CEO Cathy Harshbarger spent some time updating the board on recent news, including insurance changes and the transition to a new computer network.

She said they worked with a company to conduct an analysis and audit of operations. After targeting several areas that could be tweaked, the potential impact of changes for optimization is a minimum savings of $560,735 and a maximum of $1,175,152.

Other business

In other business at the Oct. 26 meeting, the board:

— Met Krista Doble, new chief human resources officer.

— Heard a monthly Quality Committee report from Director of Quality Karen Hooker.

— Reviewed Policy 2.10 regarding board awareness and support, Policy 1.0 regarding global ends statement/mission and Governance Policy 3.3 regarding delegation to the administrator.

— Approved credentialing for one initial applicant and six reappointments.