News

'Two midnights' rule dims Pardee's fiscal picture

By Bill Moss, Published: December 20, 2013

The hospital's Board of Directors on Wednesday reviewed a chart of the financial numbers for October and November, the first two months of the 2013-14 budget year.
"As we called around to neighboring hospitals in South Carolina and in our region and to our peer hospitals in the UNC system, we found that emergency room volumes are down predominately across the board," House told the board.
Pardee CEO Jay Kirby told the board that the poor figures for the first two months will require the hospital to look carefully at hiring. The hospital has to have adequate direct-care personnel on board in case admissions spike "and at the same time (will be) making sure we don't have staff sitting around with nothing to do," he said.
The near-universal drop in ER visits and patient admissions "tells me we're not losing market share," he added.
Board member John Bell said his research showed that the drop in revenue is widespread.
"I have looked at 36 hospitals this year and with the exception of four or five they are all looking at the same thing," Dr. Bell said.
House said October through December are generally weak performing months financially.
"History tells us that the first quarter is always the most difficult quarter," he said, "and over the last seven years in only were we ahead of budget."
Pardee's ER visits dropped to 4,814, which was 391 under forecast and 169 behind last year. Urgent care visits at Pardee's two clinics — off Four Seasons Boulevard and at the new Mission-Pardee health campus — came in at 4,241, 512 over budget and 715 over 2013. Patient admissions of 1,031 were 252 under budget and 153 behind last year.
The drop in ER visits, House said, directly affects patient admission because 80 percent of admissions come from the ER.
"So when our emergency room is down, that's going to reduce the number of patients you see in-house," he said.