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Massena Memorial Hospital reports net loss of $125,881 in June

Posted 7/22/14

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital reported finishing June with a $125,881 net loss, about a $225,000 difference than the $100,096 gain that had been forecast. Total number of inpatient cases was …

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Massena Memorial Hospital reports net loss of $125,881 in June

Posted

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital reported finishing June with a $125,881 net loss, about a $225,000 difference than the $100,096 gain that had been forecast.

Total number of inpatient cases was 219, 18 more than projected, and outpatient registrations totaled 11,937 compared with 11,482 budgeted. Observation visits totaled 65 compared to 79 planned. To date, the hospital has seen a $2,149,870 net loss, according to the summary distributed Monday at the MMH Board of Managers meeting. That compares to a budgeted gain of $377,022.

The hospital doesn’t have a negative balance on the books and offsets the deficit with cash reserves, MMH CFO James Smith said previously.

The MMH and Massena town boards are to meet this afternoon to discuss the hospital’s future. They have been holding a series of closed-door meetings that have been attended by MMH administration and union heads, as well as town lawmakers. The meeting will be closed-door, Town Supervisor Joseph Gray said last week, because no governing body will have a quorum.

That means they are not legally obligated to announce their convention or admit citizen spectators. Gray said the public is restricted because he believes people will speak more freely without worry that their comments will be published.

"The discussion is very frank and direct and not very pretty," Gray said. "I think people are more comfortable having these discussions behind closed doors." Councilman John Macaulay said MMH union representatives are to come back with a "plan C" to privatization, but no one yet knows what it may entail. "I'm not sure what they're going to come up with," Macaulay said. "They need to have an accounting analysis of it so we'll have something to make a decision from."

The meeting could be the last of a series Gray began holding starting in May. He wanted the hospital administration and union to come up with what he called "plan B," meaning keeping MMH a municipal institution, but making big enough cuts moving forward to stave off bankruptcy. MMH is looking at privatizing because, according to a study by FreedMaxick CPAs, they will go broke by 2017.

The hospital saw an overall $3,310,000 net loss from operations in 2013 and ended the year with $4,986,000 cash on-hand, which is a $1,855,000 reduction from the previous year.