How could our hospital fail with our expert Private Board giving their all with l00’s of hours of dedicated decision making? PCMH had the support of dedicated employees, tax payer money, supposedly no debt, untold property holdings, a brand-new hospital facility, reportedly great management, good doctors and $10 million in cash! What could possibly go wrong? I highly suspect most know that PCMH has a “Who did What” problem, not a support problem!
None of the “Who” at PCMH has offered an explanation as to why things have gone wrong. We all know that every person in management, the past CEO, and most likely the head of PFCC are deliberately silent. This silence has caused conflict and needless division in our community. I have very limited hospital knowledge, but this is what I consider an opinion to explain what might have gone wrong at PCMH. Please, get involved by helping seek the truth.
I find it interesting: The Private Board indicates everything is hunky dory, that all the community is in agreement with them negotiating away our hospital, that only a few are ‘Just Making Noise” questioning their management. Unfortunately, the facts indicate otherwise.
THE HUGE VOTER TURNOUT THAT BROUGHT THREE TIMES THE VOTES FOR CHANGING CANDIDATES VERSUS THE INCUMBENT ON THE PUBLIC HOSPITAL BOARD. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A MINORITY TO YOU??
Many of our elected public servants are being left in the dark, have unanswered questions, and have lost trust in the Private Board and so has the community. This includes newly elected public board members as well as those responsible for overseeing the merger process. Does this sound like they are working for the best interest of the community to you? To many of us, it sounds like we have a Private Board problem!
There were no reports of pending financial problems in 2016. PCMH had a CMS rating of 4 and the CEO stated from the rooftop “PCMH is in great shape.” The CEO also stated in 2016 he was going to put the hospital over the top and make lots of money. I only found one main decision in 2016. A physician was hired to care for the admitted patients at PCMH. To make the money the CEO needed to “put the hospital over the top,” would require lots of inpatient care. Per public information, the physician’s starting salary began at $333,000 and progressed each year: $579,000, $1.279 to $1.349 million over the period from 2016 to 2019. What is the explanation of this progressive salary? The progressive salary should have been a red flag to the board for a 24 bed, not for profit, rural hospital. When a starting salary for a hospitalist is generally about $300,000; nowhere in the United States is a hospitalist paid more than $1,500 for a 12hr shift or about $375,000 per year, $750,000 for double shifts. This physician’s salary is not “Common Sense.” A pending major financial problem arrived in 2019 that changed PCMH forever.
Yes, something went terribly wrong in 2019! The pending problem caused the physician’s salary to be drastically reduced to $821,000 in 2020 and probably less in 2021. The pending problem caused the trickle-down effect to all PCMH employees: a hiring freeze, no raises, a reduction in employees retirement benefits, meals were eliminated and even drinking water was removed. I feel the initial “Not Fixable” blow came in late fall of 2019 when the CEO stated without explanation $3,000,000 would have to be refunded to Medicare. In January 2020 PCMH rating went from 4 to 1 and the CEO was later placed on administrative leave.
TO THE BOARD, I THINK YOUR 100’S OF HOURS OF SUPERVISION ARRIVED AOUT 3 YEARS LATE. HOW IS IT THE PRIVATE BOARD DOES NOT KNOW WHY PCMH’S CMS RATING DROPPED FROM A 4 TO 1?
