Hospital wants to keep fed. cash; RMC has received $26.5M in CARES Act money, more

RMC has applied for forgiveness from the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the hospital’s participation in the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act.

A PPP loan was provided to the hospital’s six primary care practices (Edisto Regional Health Services) to pay for payroll and utility expenses.

The hospital is also going to request that it not have to pay back the provider relief grant funds it received under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. The grant helped fund the hospital’s general operations during COVID.

RMC Chief Financial Officer Amy Crouch believes the hospital will be able to keep the PPP funds because of the pandemic’s impact on Edisto Regional Health Services.

Crouch is also confident the hospital will be able to keep CARES Act grant funds as well.

“The CARES Act is a grant where we will attest that we have earned the money and then our external auditor DAG will perform a single audit and that single audit will ensure that we have really spent that money on what we said we spent it on,” Crouch told RMC trustees last week.

The hospital has received a total of about $26.5 million in CARES Act money since the pandemic began. The amount it has received in PPP was not immediately available.

Trustee Boyd McLeod asked if the hospital has applied for forgiveness for the PPP loan. RMC Vice President for Physician Practice Operations Sabrina Robinson confirmed that it has.

“We have not used the money yet,” Robinson explained. “I don’t know if we received the confirmation of the approval of forgiveness, since we have not used it yet but I can follow up.”

Trustee Dr. Vann Beth Shuler said, “I don’t see how you can get forgiveness because what they ask is that you document how you spent it. Then they decide if they want to forgive it.

“We have to do something so we can spend it and then have the information to meet the deadline here. If not, we are going to have to pay it back.”

Trustee Dawn Robinson said, “As long as you meet the criteria with the payroll and the utilities and expenditures there, we can leave that money in an account and use your other reserves and then apply for forgiveness. You just have to show that you have met the expenses.”

In other matters, the net income for the RMC and Edisto Regional Health Services for the month of May was $1.4 million. About $5 million was CARES Act money, Crouch said.

Some of the main drivers for the hospital’s revenue for the month were lower than budgeted inpatient volumes and a 2% shift from Medicare to Medicaid payments, which affected contractual alliances negatively, she said.

On the expense side, RMC and the ERHS saw expenses $460,000 below budget for the month, with professional expenses being about $2.6 million below the prior year.

Year-to-date, the hospital is about $2.6 million in the red. RMC, including the ERHS, is $3.7 million in the red.

In related matters, the ERHS in May saw visits under budget by 892. Overall for the month, the primary care practices saw revenues $87,538 below budget, said Dr. Gloria James, ERHS committee chair.

One of six practices met their budget, James said.

Year-to-date, visits for the ERHS are under budget by 6,287 and revenues are $538,079 below budget, with two of six practices meeting budget, James said.

In other business:

• Trustees gave Sabrina Robinson the authority to negotiate with an Orangeburg doctor for the purchase of office space. The hospital hopes to possibly use the office space for outpatient mental health services.

Officials hope to close on the property and begin providing services within the next two or three months. The name of the doctor was not disclosed.

• The board unanimously voted to purchase marketing software that will research claims databases so that the hospital can figure out outmigration patterns.

The software will enable hospital officials to better target doctor specialties in its recruitment efforts.

The software, called Marketware, will cost the RMC about $90,000 for the year.

• Trustee Development Committee Chairman William Wilson said the board was generally pleased with the recent compliance training members received.

• Trustees went into closed session to receive the president’s report related to personnel and contractual matters; a quality care oversight report; a report from the Edisto Regional Health Services Board; a report from the Strategic Planning Committee; an update on the hospital’s revenue cycle and performance improvement; a legal update on its certificate of need related to the Ambulatory Surgery Center; a compliance update; a human resource committee update and a management oversight report.