BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

MASSENA -- St. Lawrence Health System is looking at where Potsdam, Gouverneur and Massena departments may be able to collaborate, according to the new CEO.

He announced that alongside Massena Memorial Hospital losing nearly $1 million in June, which new CEO called "sobering."

The June loss came amid a month where their inpatient volume was even with their budget number, but year-to-date they are below both their anticipations and last year's totals.

"Inpatient volumes continue to be under budget year to date," Chief Financial Officer Pat Facteau said.

He said using the Medicare reimbursement rates, they are "$1.7 million behind in discharges" based on the 2019 numbers.

Facteau pointed out that although the June 2019 loss was large, it was below what they lost in the same month last year.

"It's a small celebration of the fact last year we lost $1.4 million for the month," he said.

Bender said with St. Lawrence Health System managing MMH, they are now comparing what Massena Memorial is doing with SLHS's other two hospitals.

Massena Memorial is "working with our department heads and their senior leaders and counterparts from Canton-Potsdam Hospital and in some cases Gouverneur Hospital to find out where they can better work together."

The new CEO also said they have made some changes that he believes will contribute to helping improve finances going forward.

He said they got rid of their Da Vinci robotic surgery device, which they paid for through a lease agreement.

"We're going to start seeing the benefit of that in July," he said.

They also made reductions in anesthesia to match the number of surgeries they're performing.

Alongside that, he said they "improved our [emergency department] coding to take advantage of some of the opportunities there."

He expects that to bring in an extra $100,000.

"We have a million dollar problem. It's $100,000 to the good. It's a start," Bender said.