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Phillips’ hospital work not over yet
Published Sunday, August 17, 2008
Scott Phillips just put on a new hat and he’s about to start courting.
All he needs is a shoeshine before he goes out and shows the world his best features.
The hired gun/savior of financially beleaguered Natchez Regional Medical Center rode into town on virtual white horse a few months back.
Phillips’ firm, hired by Natchez Regional’s Board of Trustees, made quick work of digging into the numbers behind the hospital’s finances.
Perhaps the most amazing feat he’s managed is carefully debunking the myths that many people — even those close to the hospital — believed were at the heart of the financials woes.
The hospital wasn’t struggling to pay its bills because of the well-managed competition and it wasn’t because of serving poor people who were not paying their bills.
In short, the biggest issue Phillips pointed out is that Natchez Regional was massively overstaffed and had been mismanaged badly, too.
Through obviously painful job layoffs and restructuring the hospital’s management, Phillips reported recently that the hospital is no longer bleeding cash and that it’s paying its current bills.
That’s a massive change in a short amount of time, but Philips isn’t finished.
His team — including a number of longtime Natchez Regional management members — deserves a big “thanks” for the hard work done to date.
But all that’s been done so far simply stabilizes the hospital. Long term a better solution for the management of the hospital is needed.
The hospital board and the county board of supervisors have agreed to move toward selling the hospital.
Enter Phillips and his new hat. He’s getting ready to be salesman.
But an interesting thing is that selling the hospital isn’t as simple as selling a house.
First, selling a publicly owned facility requires jumping through lots of hoops — some of which are intended on protecting the public’s interests.
Second, figuring out the value of Natchez Regional can be a complicated process. Essentially, our community is attempting to sell an under-performing business.
The first step has been done: fixing the immediate cash flow problem. That “dirty work” is something new buyers would not want to have to do, plus it increases the value.
Another step is showing how much business a new owner of Natchez Regional could either capture or funnel to its existing facilities.
Phillips estimates that potential is a huge benefit for a potential buyer.
Approximately $20 million in Medicare business leaves our area each year for treatment in larger cities, Phillips estimates. And, he said, Medicare only represents 12 percent of the population.
“Almost half of the Medicare revenue is leaving town and Medicare patients are the least mobile,” Phillips says. “If you know 45 to 50 percent of Medicare is leaving, you can be sure your (non-Medicare) patients are leaving, too.”
Approximately $50 million in healthcare services leaves our area each year, he said.
While that patient flight may seem like a huge negative, if you’re a potential buyer who already has larger healthcare facilities nearby, that’s a plus, Phillips says.
A large buyer can capitalize on this by funneling those patients to their own facilities in Jackson or Baton Rouge — for example. Even better, a new buyer could funnel more specialist physicians to our community to handle the need here instead of shipping dollars and patients out of the county.
In the meantime, let’s hope Phillips and his new hat can make Natchez Regional attractive to buyers.
Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.
Comments
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on August 18, 2008 at 5:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Taxes won't go down and in five years there will be an article about how on earth is the county going to get the money to run the recreation complex they built with the money from the sale of the hospital.
Posted by andy (anonymous) on August 18, 2008 at 5:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
i hope your right they need to sell the hospital so taxes can go down in adams county
Posted by texasranger (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 12:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Wonder if this Phillips guy would like to travel out of town or his family for medical services.? Never understood why they have to always hire all these lawyers,CEO,s and spend millions of taxpayers dollars to get nothing in return,and just tell them what everybody already knew. That is so strange. Hatchet men always make everything sound good and then they slip on out.
Posted by texasranger (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 12:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Knew a CEO or strawboss at IPCO once. He would grab a tool or something you were working with out of your hand and work like a wild man for about 2 minutes,to show you how to do it right. Then he would leave and sit in his air-conditioned office and write memo,s telling you to hurry up and do this and that...All this hoopla CEO,s and so called wonder folks are about the same. Andybody can fire a bunch of workers and leave the rooms uncleaned and linens not changed,at least that,s the way it was last time i was there.
Posted by aak1972 (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 4:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nevermind I think I answered my own question!!!!!!!!
Posted by aak1972 (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 5:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If the county owns the hospital why cant the county run it? Adams county has on payroll attorneys and accountants so why go hire a firm to do what in my opinion is already paid for by taxpayers
Posted by bananajive (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 8:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Daydreams! no one wants to buy a hospital with huge debt in a failing economy filled with medicaid and non insurance patients. You would not believe how many people in Natchez do not have insurance and that leads to debt at both hospitals. Alot of the insurance patients use the after hour clinics and outpatient surgery centers. If we keep having the daming blogs more and more are going to go out of town in fear that Natchez health care is not competant. The same doctors work in both hospitals the only diffenerces is who staffs the ER. Remember between the two hospitals there are approx 500 employees. lets not scare folks off with false accusations and cause people to be laid off. I was appauled at some of the blogs that slandered some of the doctors and hospitals
Posted by johnny1nut (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 9:21 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by johnny1nut (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 9:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I have an idea lets do a study on the ant beds in the grass. We can call the orkin man and pay him 40,000 dollars. This way everybody gets a chunk of the money and nobody is left out.
Posted by johnny1nut (anonymous) on August 19, 2008 at 10:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that cutting back staff will save you money. Mr. Phillips is getting paid over 100,000 a month to be a so called CEO. That is a known fact, and came straight from his mouth. The hospital has been run very badly in the past, and yes non pay patients is a big problem along with the sinking economy. Also you have to facture in competition across the street. So if you think Phillips is a savior wrong this could have been done without him and his high price tag. What does a person do with 100,000 dollars a month. I guess those condos in Malibu don't come cheap. You could take his salary and hire back more employee's and have a better quality of care. This is a bunch of corporate BS@#$@# if you ask me. Everybody has their hand in the bucket, but Mr. Phillips beat them there.
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