Wayne Memorial Hospital insists on good service from companies
By Laura Collins
Published in News on February 11, 2010 1:46 PM
At Tuesday's Wayne Memorial Hospital board of directors meeting, the board took steps toward ensuring fair negotiations with insurance companies.
The board approved a managed care contracting strategy -- an effort to keep all contracts on an even footing.
"We will negotiate with organizations that will share risk fairly, meet our criteria for prompt payment, can bring us new volume, offer fair terms that do not take complex systems to administer and measure, and have a reasonable administrative process," said Becky Craig, hospital vice president of finance.
She said the hospital's goal is to have high quality care for a low cost and to strive to get patients to the level they need to achieve to be discharged.
"There is constant pressure from insurers to discharge quickly, and yet the patient's physician is responsible for that final decision," she said.
Ms. Craig said the hospital is also avoiding having one company that can distinguish itself as having a "deal" with the hospital.
"They need to win customers through their emphasis on quality, service and price," she said.
Also at the meeting, the board briefly recognized past board directors.
One of the past directors, Dr. Joseph McLamb, spoke briefly about his time on the board. McLamb, who began serving on the board in 1989, said when he began there was a lot of distrust between the medical staff and the board. He added that the best decision the board made while he was serving was hiring Bill Paugh as CEO of the hospital.
Also at the meeting, board vice president William Broadaway said gross revenues for December were $33.3 million, which "were about on budget." But year-to-date net revenues were 5 percent below budget with $50.1 million. Overall December expenses were down about $700,000, he said.