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FY 95-96 audit - Wake up call
Among the rather startling information beginning to un-
fold by reviewing the FY 95-96 audits made available at the
February 4, 1997 Nye County Commission meeting is hard
data concerning the Nye Regional Medical Center (NRMC)
in Tonopah.
Even after becoming somewhat inured to the misinforma-
tion decimated on a continuous basis at commission meetings
I still find myself falling into the trap of believing that at least
once in a while, some of the time, we are being told the truth.
NRMC and the problems
underlying it present finan- This Man's Opinion
cial crisis position is a case
in point, by Brent Mathewson
We have been told con-
tinuously over the last few years that a rural hospital cannot
expect to run at a profit for three key reasons. 1. The expense
of operating an emergency room facility is prohibitive and
cannot be overcome by potential profits that may be made in
other departments, 2. Ditto the labor-delivery room facili-
ties. 3. Some people just don't pay their bills.
The NRMC audit reveals the lie behind this fallacy that has
been preached to us like a mantra. NRMC had revenues in FY
95-96 totaling $6,303,422. This figure was adjusted down-
ward from a regional total of $7,717,407 to reflect the fact that
Medicare, Medicaid and insurance firms do not pay the full
amount billed. There are 16 different departments at NRMC
and combined they generated this total 6 million dollar
revenue figure. The emergency room did run at a loss but it
was a loss of a mere $192,666 and the labor-delivery depart-
ment lost an additional $24,648.
Altogether the 16 departments paid for all their expenses,
all the doctors' fees (which are paid and determined by
contract) and all the expenses of 9 other non-revenue gener-
ating departments of the hospital which are necessary to
operate a facility of this type. After they paid for all these
things there was still a profit left over and the plant was
running in the black to the tune of $1,413,975.
So where did all the money go? I'll tell you where it went.
It went fight out the door and into the pockets of the hospital
administration which ran almost a million dollars over budget
during the fiscal year involved. By the way, the county
manager at the time, Bill Offutt, was the CEO at the hospital
until he was fired on March 5, 1996 and replaced by Les
Bradshaw. The CEO was the person primarily responsible
for seeing to it that the administration operate within its
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The audit also shows a highly deceiving figure of
$1,531,280 as a write-off figure of people who haven't paid
their bills to the hospital. The audit states that 25.75% of the
hospital's income is billed to patients without insurance. The
auditor verbally stated about 35% of these bills go uncol-
lected. The 1 1/2 million dollar write off cannot possibly
reflect accurately the uncollected private patient fees of the
fiscal year involved. To reach the 1 1/2 million dollar figure
all private patient fees billed for the
[l year would have had to go uncol-
lected. The write off obviously
represents fees that have gone un-
collected going back many years
past. Yet in spite of this the county
coughed up 996,096 dollars through
a questionable i nterfund transfer out
of PET'I" monies without.the p
lics or even most of the commission's knowledge to suppos-
edly cover this expense. This illegal transfer out of the PET]"
money account was revealed to the public for the first time on
February 4, 1997 when the auditor, Dan MacArthur, men-
tioned it to the commission in a verbal presentation of his
report. Most in the audience, including the commission did
not fully comprehend what was being explained at the time.
NRMC's fiscal problems in FY 95-96 were nothing when
compared to FY 96-97 which will end on June 30 of this year.
The high priced management that has been brought on board
has only managed to accelerate the financial destruction of
Nye Regional that will surely take place if not brought to an
immediate halt. NRMC is leaking money like an open faucet
and has lost an additional 2 million dollars since last June.
The hard numbers are plainly visible to anyone who cares
enough to open their eyes and see.
There is another figure that is somewhat more camou-
flaged but should be of equal interest to the Nye County
citizen. This figure can be found in the Nye County audit and
has to do with the ending fund balance in the Nye County
general fund on June 30, 1996. The projected budget balance
on that date was to be $440,998. The audit states that the
actual balance ended being a negative $34,754 in the hole.
The negative $34,000 figure is highly misleading. The fund
is supposedly backed up with assets of $1,228,729 owed to it
from another government agency. Which government agency?
None other, of course, than the Nye Regional Medical Center
" For more information Coil
>
in Tonop otherwise known
as NRMC. The true Nye
County general fund balance
on that date was minus $1.3
million in the red and county
records bear this out. "
For those who are inter-
ested, Nye County govern-
ment expenditures exceeded
revenue by about $6 million
in FY 95-96. It is still going
on and if there has been any
change at all it has only been
to accelerate the pace of fi-
nancial irresponsibility. The
commission is now spending
FY 97-98 PETT fund mon-
eys that will not be received
until September of this year
at the earliest. A million and
a half of these monies are
already out the door. All
other funds have been spent
or are rigidly encumbered.
Someone in authority in
this county had better wake
up and smell the bacon." It's
burning.
That is this man's opinio%
(702) 751._5262
