CCH ups revenue but falls further in the red

The loss comes despite stronger revenues and patient volumes.

For a few days at the end of March and into April, a CCH statement provider had an IT issue that left it unable to make statements, said Adam Popp, chief financial officer, to hospital board trustees last week.

When looking at the bottom line, he said “the elephant in the room” was the increased losses from bad debt and contractual allowances, or the difference between what CCH bills and what insurers will pay.

“I anticipate seeing that come back to earth next month,” he said.

The issue had an effect on many of the overall line items on the financial statements trustees approved at their meeting last week.

“At this point, the fix has been made … the majority of what was sitting to be billed out … those have now gone out,” Popp said. “But there were a number of days there where they did not.”

The $3.4 million hit dropped the loss from July through March to almost $12.9 million on the year, with three months remaining in the fiscal year.

The loss came despite high patient revenues of $33 million, which were mitigated by the high $17.2 million contractual allowances that equated to a $12.7 million net revenue.

Once factoring in non-patient revenues, such as the mill levy and investment income, then subtracting $18.5 million in expenses, CCH landed at $3.4 million in the red for the month.

Trustee Dr. Mark Hoskinson said the high patient revenues are encouraging. The organization is up more than $14 million in that line item from last year. But overall, he said the finances are a concern.

“We’re still losing money this year and it concerns me,” he said.

CCH budgeted to lose about a half-million dollars this fiscal year, which was a drastic swing from the $25 million it lost last year. In December, the organization showed a slight profit for the month, and has had increasing losses in the three months since.

“If we stay at this rate, we’ll lose $17 or $20 million dollars this year,” Hoskinson said. “I don’t want to do that. I’m wondering what we’re doing to try to change that trajectory?”

Popp said that there are resources being thrown at the revenue cycle, or how CCH bills and collects money, but “none of the resources that we are utilizing could have controlled what happened to our statement provider. That’s outside our control.”

There are “expense management” techniques that he believes CCH will have to begin using.

Trustee Bill Rice said that there are positives within the finances, particularly with employee salaries, which came in lower than budgeted through March.

Still, “we’ve got expenses that are very, very high,” he said.

“That’s a great accomplishment as an organization,” Rice said of the revenue increase. “But the expenses are killing us.”