By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Losses continue at Massena Memorial Hospital, according to a September financial summary made public on Monday night. But the loss for the month is twice what it would have been if not for a 2011 accounting error, chief financial officer James Smith said.

Smith said the books in 2011 recorded indigent care covered by Medicaid as “other insurance.” The state audited their books, and since it wasn’t properly noted, it appeared to the auditors that MMH received more Medicaid reimbursement than they needed, Smith said. MMH is now in debt to New York state $770,000. On the September report, $200,000 of that was included in the $375,000 net loss they reported.

And that number is just for 2011. The state auditors haven’t yet gotten to 2012 through 2014, when the reimbursements were recorded in the same fashion.

“We told the state through our reporting mechanism we made $2.5 million profit on our Medicaid,” Smith said.

Smith said they can appeal the process and hopefully get their payment back and the debt cancelled.

“Whatever we have to do to appeal this promptly … we need to do that,” board member Gary Borgosz said.

Going forward, Smith said he thinks MMH can stop the error from happening again.

“We’ll be working with the CPA firms to ensure the data on record is appropriate … and hopefully it will go away,” he said.

Year to date, MMH has reported a $3,152,785 net loss, which they’ve balanced out by spending cash reserves. They budgeted to be $712,417 in the black by this point in 2014.