GVH looks to the future as finances appear to stabilize

Outpatient surgeries increase, births decrease

The Gunnison Valley Hospital (GVH) continues to make progress toward keeping its operations in the black, recording a $356,654 net income from operations for June 2013.

This is good news as GVH spent much of last year in a major financial deficit; as an example, at this time in 2012 the institution was facing operating losses totaling close to $1.2 million, and had only 90 days cash on hand. Today, according to GVH administration, the hospital has 184 days of cash on hand and has a year-to-date net income of $1.3 million.
Changes to the hospital’s administration, treatment plans, inpatient care and employee compensation have all contributed to the positive financial statements, which the GVH board of trustees shared with the Gunnison County commissioners at a meeting in mid-July.
“At this time last year we began doing a sweep of the entire organization to identify areas of improvement,” said Michelle Campbell, GVH business development officer. “Every department in the hospital was charged with looking at their operations and becoming more efficient.”
As part of the process, Campbell said, the hospital revisited its revenue cycle and worked to shorten the gap in time between when patients received care and when their insurance was billed.
This, coupled with changes in vendor contracts, and the management of inventory were relatively mundane changes, had large impacts on the bottom line.
“We’re looking to hold the course on operating efficiently, while also working to attract new providers and increase our service offerings to the community,” added Campbell.
According to the GVH board of trustees, in the last year GVH has experienced shifts in the type of services used by the community. When compared to June 2012, the number of hospital admissions and patient days are up, while the number of inpatient surgeries is down.
The biggest change, however, is in the number of outpatient surgeries performed. Last June there were more than 30 surgeries completed. This year that number more than doubled, rocketing to more than 60 outpatient surgeries. This increase compensated for the decline in inpatient surgeries and brought the total number of surgeries completed at GVH in June 2013 to about 110, up from just more than 75 in 2012.
“One of the reasons we’re seeing such an increase in outpatient surgeries is that that Dr. Griggs separated from Alpine Orthopedics, and since he separated from Alpine he’s doing all his surgeries here at the hospital,” said Campbell. “We’ve also seen an increase in ophthalmology and plastic surgery services. These, combined with Dr. Griggs’ surgeries, is a lot of the reason.”
To accommodate the evolving needs of the hospital and the community, GVH administration said it would seek to increase staffing in primary care, psychiatry, cardiology, gastroenterology, ophthalmology and plastic surgery. In addition, GVH will work to insure physician appointments are filled as current staff reaches retirement age.
The average age of the GVH medical staff is 53, Campbell told the county commissioners. Of the 29 GVH physicians, nine are older than 60. To address this, GVH will begin succession planning for several specialties, including cardiology, obstetrics/gynecology, oncology and primary care.
“Right now we’re looking at sitting down and assessing the situation and the best ways to address care in the future,” said Campbell.