RMC to open primary care clinic in Bowman

“We are really excited,” RMC Vice President of Operations Sabrina Robinson told RMC trustees at the board’s April meeting. “We will plant our flag in Bowman.”

RMC Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Lisa Etheridge will serve as the provider of the clinic upon the retirement of Dr. Anna Price. Etheridge has been with RMC for the past three years.

Etheridge will staff the facility three days a week and a licensed practical nurse or a medical office assistant will be on site five days per week.

The specific days the clinic will be open have not been determined, Robinson said. The hours of the clinic will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The medical clinic is located at 106 Causeway Court.

The primary care service is the first presence for RMC in Bowman.

“If we didn’t take the location over, the residents of Bowman would not have any local primary care,” Robinson said.

Robinson said having the clinic in Bowman means continued health care access for residents in that area of the county, as well as potential ancillary revenue to the hospital.

The RMC has upgraded the facility by painting and putting in new flooring. The work was done by the hospital’s engineering department.

Board Chair the Rev. Dr. Caesar Richburg said he is excited about “our path going forward.”

Trustees also unanimously voted to approve a marketing plan as part of a rebranding effort. The effort will be led by the hospital’s strategy department.

“That means this has been cascaded from the top down,” Richburg said. “It is a total buy-in from the governance group here at the hospital.”

“We thought we need to rebrand the hospital with emphasis on sharing our patient experience stories and really emphasizing our quality-of-care successes,” RMC President David Southerland said following the meeting. “Health care is transitioning from being a fee-for-service base reimbursement to what we call a value-based model. A value-based model means that we will get reimbursed on a future basis on our quality. We are really having to focus on our quality.”

The hospital’s strategy committee will be responsible for leading the marketing and rebranding effort. Southerland said once an overall rebranding plan is finalized, it will be shared with the public.

The rebranding effort comes on the heels of RMC getting reaccredited and the gold seal of approval awarded by The Joint Commission in March.

The accreditation demonstrates the hospital’s continuous compliance with its performance standards. The gold seal is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care, according to the Commission.

Accreditation is a three-year award.

In other matters, Interim RMC Chief Financial Officer Dennis Pettigrew said financially there were “a number of positive stories” for the month of March.

“I think we have had some less positive in the past three or four months,” he said. “Things are better.”

Pettigrew said RMC had 769 acute discharges for the month of March. That is up about 30% from the same month last year.

“That is the second highest discharge month we have had in the last 15,” Pettigrew said.

He said the length of stay has also decreased to about 3.8 days from five days as compared to March 2021. 

“That is a positive pickup,” Pettigrew said. “A lot of that is Medicare. Medicare pays us on a case rate. When the length of stay goes down, we get paid the same amount if we manage our expenses.”

The hospital was up on inpatient surgeries to about 136 compared to 132 last year and was down on outpatient surgery cases by about 27% compared to year ago.

Total surgery cases were up by about 7% to 866 cases as compared to 813 last year March, Pettigrew said.

“This is the highest amount we had in the past 15 months,” Pettigrew said. “That is a good story when you look at surgeries. Obviously, that drives a lot of the revenue streams.”

Pettigrew said contract labor was 40 for the month as compared to 90 last year, which is a positive as contact labor is expensive.

“Salaries were above last year,” Pettigrew said. “We have adjusted compensation for employees to be competitive in the market. We have a smaller number of people but they are being paid appropriately for our types of service. We are comparable to Columbia and Charleston.”

Pettigrew said charges for the month of March were $63.7 million compared to March 2021 $67.7 million, or a 5.9% decrease.

“The trending is getting better. We are not where we would like to be, but this is a positive month and we think March sets a nice tone going into the second half of this fiscal year,” Pettigrew said.

Despite several positive trends, the hospital still has some financial challenges.

For the entire hospital system, which includes the hospital’s six primary care practices, there was a loss for the month of March of about $1.2 million, which includes non-operating income.

The loss could have been worse. The RMC did receive about $1 million in COVID relief funds for the month.

Year-to-date the hospital has lost $18.5 million, but thanks to about $10.9 million in COVID relief, the hospital has seen a loss of about $9.4 million.

The hospital’s fiscal year begins October 1.

In other business:

• It was noted the RMC recently passed an inspection of its facilities by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
• Trustees entered into closed session to receive the president’s and community works reports and a number of updates to include from its Edisto Regional Health Services, Trustee Development, strategic planning (hospital projects), quality care, and its residency program partnership with the Family Health Center.
• Other items discussed in closed session were the hospital’s current legal matter related to the ambulatory surgery center/certificate of need process in light of statewide efforts to repeal the CON process; its compliance report, personnel performance review, financial report, revenue cycle, medical staff as well as a Chief Nursing Officer and Management Oversight Committee reports.