Comments by RiverRat00
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Posted on March 1 at 3:26 p.m.
Woodduck ntztransplant and justone:
You are correct that the cath lab and OR are not making money for NRMC now and that is 100% because of the CEO. He essentially ran off Dr Flattmann (the towns only remaining surgeon)by refusing to make minor changes to make it easier to do surgery at NRMC. He fired Dr Dulam knowing that he was making more money for the hospital than any other physician there. Is it any wonder he moved all his caths to McComb and opened his own 64 slice CT scanner. Then Dr Rubinstein came and started using the cath lab and again was making a lot of money for the hospital - obviously he had to go as well. If only the hospital had retained these specialists and had someone competent doing their billing, they would be rolling in the dough. Now they have fired their cath lab director and moved the other cath lab personnell ( only a matter of time before they leave) - I guess this will help send all this profitable business to Riverpark which now has the only cath lab in the area. Maybe weaselman has stock in Riverpark - that would explain his actions in firing specialists and chasing others to competing facilities.
If he is serious about being open to any options, perhaps he should swallow his pride and approach Dr. Flattmann, Dr Rubinstein, and Dr Dulam about returning to this facility. Then perhaps the OR and cath lab would again be busy and profitable and help support some of the uncompensated care the hospital is obligated to provide by virtue of being the county hospital.
Just a thought - does anyone have a better one?....
Posted on March 1 at 3:14 p.m.
Woodduck and justone:
You are correct that the cath lab is not making money for NRMC now and that is 100% because of the CEO. He fired Dr Dulam knowing that he was making more money for the hospital than any other physician there. Is it any wonder he moved all his caths to McComb and opened his own 64 slice CT scanner. Then Dr Rubinstein came and started using the cath lab and again was making a lot of money for the hospital - obviously he had to go as well. If only the hospital had someone competent doing their billing, they would be rolling in the dough. Now they have fired their cath lab director and moved the other cath lab personnell ( only a matter of time before they leave) - I guess this will help send all this profitable business to Riverpark which now has the only cath lab in the area. Maybe weaselman has stock in Riverpark - that would explain his actions in firing specialists and chasing others to competing facilities.
If he is serious about being open to any options, perhaps he should swallow his pride and approach Dr. Flattmann, Dr Rubenstein, and Dr Dulam about returning to this facility. Then perhaps the OR and cath lab would again be busy and profitable and help support some of the uncompensated care the hospital is obligated to provide by virtue of being the county hospital.
Just a thought - does anyone have a better one?....
Posted on March 1 at 3:13 p.m.
Ms Kitty,
That is what I have been talking about. It was very short sighted of NRMC to fire a good surgeon in December and leave us with only one. That surgeon wanted to stay and told a friend of mine that he wanted to stay and actually talked with the Board and had an agreement which Weaselman then refused to honor. The other surgeon (DR Flattmann) used to do a lot of work at NRMC but cut way back after the CEO refused to meet with him about some minor changes that needed to be made - now he operates acroos the river because they are more user-friendly. Dr Flattman could not possibly cover both hospitals for a long time 24/7 - no one could do that.
Even if we had Dr Flattmann and Rubinstein comes back (I don't know if that is true - Woodduck says it is)that is not enough surgeons to provide 24/7 coverage of 2 hospitals every day. We would need at least 3 and there is little reason to believe this community will support 3 surgeons unless people with insurance (and therefore choice) start staying here to have their surgery.
Therefore, unless the hospitals offer specialists support to help build their practice and keep it going, we are doomed to being an underserved area. Either encourage the hospitals to do everything to retain these specialists when they get them or resign yourselves to living with the consequences.
As everyone who even considers moving their family or their business here wants to know about healthcare and schools, we are not in a competitive position. Let's move forward and make the first steps so there is somewhere decent to live and work when our children grow up and start to raise their families.
Posted on February 29 at 2:46 p.m.
Dear justone and getreal,
The reason that the hospitals have to employ physicians (and both of them do) is because our fair city is not very attractive to physicians compared to other cities. The level of insured patients and the quality of their insurance is pathetic. If hospitals did not employ doctors, there would be very few here and almost none of them would be specialists. To expect a new physician to take out a loan for $500,000 to start a practice in an area not known for supporting physicians well and expecting them to have no income for 6 months (the average time it takes to get approved and to start being paid by medicaid, medicare, and private insurance companies) is unrealistic. The advantage the hospitals have is that they supposedly have ecomomy of scale and can absorb this initial period of negative cash flow and that they benefit immediately by being able to charge for the physician's services and the charges the hospitals get on the patients admitted by these physicians and the procedures they do at the hospital. If the hospital knows how to bill properly, they should make big bucks on these contracts - evidently NCH knows how to do this and NRMC doesn't. Since this is the wave of the future, NRMC better get this expertise quickly or we will all be in worse shape medically.
By the way, a tax increase would be only a drop in the bucket and will not help unless NRMC gets its act together and learns how to manage the hospital and the physician practices - if they do, the tax increase is unnecessary - use that money to improve our schools (another big problem here - don't even get me started on that one....).
Posted on February 28 at 11:17 p.m.
The Tillmans are not the problem. None of the staff physicians at NRMC or NCH want to take ER call. Only a few of the groups even take care of their own patients in the hospital. That is why Dr Jeansonne is my doctor - at least he will take care of you if you get sick enough to go to the hospital. That is why both hospitals have hired hospitalists to take care of the patients in the hospital.
Right now, only the surgical specialists and GYN's take ER call. No medical doctors in this entire city will do it because of the large number of uninsured patients that come through the ER and the hospital's unwillingness to compensate them for taking care of these patients. This is another reason the hospitals should do everything it takes to keep surgeons, cardiologists, and other specialists here.
I have several clients who are physicians here and they can't afford to provide the volume of uninsured care that comes through the ER and still have a profitable office. They are already working long hours and don't have enough time to spend with their families without this extra responsibility. If we expect young physicians to move here with their families and settle down in this community, we had better make it look more attractive to them. Otherwise, we deserve what we get.
Posted on February 28 at 8:11 p.m.
I agree with many of the above comments. The employees of NRMC are for the most part, a wonderful group of dedicated professionals who try their best to give good quality medical care to every patient there. The administration has been a big problem. They don't give the employees the resources they need. They have fired good employees and doctors to save a few bucks and haven't taken care of their job (ie collections).
I heard that the reasons they let some physicians go was not that the physicians were demanding too much but rather that the hospital mis-managed their practices and only collected 20% of their billings(not 45% as was mentioned in yesterdays article). On top of that they just employeed a bunch of physicians who were already in the community (OB_GYN, Ortho, etc and will likely mis-manage them as well unless they get someone in who knows what it takes to run a hospital and medical practice. Lets hope this happens before it is too late.
Posted on February 27 at 8:24 p.m.
Dear NTZtransplant,
Thank you. My mother is much better now and she didn't require an amputation like the other surgeon in town said. He is the one who sent us to Dr Rubinstein.
I didnt realize you worked at NRMC. My problem is that my mother was able to have her surgical treatment for her legs here and now has to travel 110 miles for followup. We had a good surgeon she liked and who did procedures no one else did. Now he was fired by the hospital and the hospital closed his office the very day my mother was supposed to go back for her follow-up. There were a lot of vascular patients and dialysis patients who have nowhere to go now and this IS the administration's fault. I cant wait to see how long it will be until we have another vascular surgeon in town.
Do you still work for NRMC? If not, why did you leave? Don't you think the hospital and the city will be better off with more surgeons and cardiologists? If it is so hard to get them to come, shouldn't we try to keep everyone who does come rather than having to recruit new people? I think the next CEO will have a hard time keeping this place open because of the mistakes made by Quorum and Mr Weaselman.
Posted on February 27 at 6:48 p.m.
Dear ntztransplant17: You are excused. Perhaps it is you who are not aware of all the details you think you know. I have lived here for 10 years (my mother has been here 27 years) and you are evidently a recent "transplant" from somewhere else. If things are as you say, the hospital did all these checks on those doctors and found they were qualified. This town had 3 surgeons last year and now there is one. Two out of three nights, there is NO surgeon on call so patients have to be shipped out to another city. I didn't know the first surgeon(DrSwartz) who left, but I know Dr Rubinstein saved my mothers leg and was a good, caring doctor. The cardiologist who left was making the hospital lots of money and now the cath lab is closed and we dont have a cardiologist. (surgeons and cardiologists are the biggest income producers for hospitals) Please tell me how not having a cardiologist and only having 1 surgeon in town is good for this community. I cant plan which days to have a heart attack or a car wreck.
Since it is so hard to recruit new doctors who even want to come here, it is even more important to keep them once we get them. Maybe if the administration placed more emphasis on retention, the city wouldn't be having this crisis. I hope whoever the next CEO is will make keeping doctors a priority.
Posted on February 27 at 2:03 p.m.
NRMC is a victim of its own policies. They have not had the best interest of the community at heart for some time. Mr Weaselman had run off more doctors than he brought in. They recently fired the best surgen (Dr Rubinstein) they had in years and now those patients with vascular problems (like my mother) have to go to Jackson to be taken care of. They also fired there cardiologist and didnt hire a new one. Is it any wonder the hospital lost money? Maybe if we just had 1 good hospital instead of 2 fighting hospital this city would be better off.
Page 1 of 1
Posted on March 1 at 3:39 p.m.
Dear collegues and neighbors:
It is a fact that the OR and cath lab are not making money for NRMC now and that is 100% because of the CEO. Why is he still running the place after the decision to fire Quorum???? He essentially ran off Dr Flattmann (the towns only remaining surgeon) by refusing to meet with him to resolve some minor problems that would make doing surgery at NRMC easier. Now Dr Flattmann operates mostly at NCH and Riverpark. He fired Dr Dulam knowing that he was making more money for the hospital than any other physician there. He kept the cath lab busy most of the time. Is it any wonder Dulam moved all his caths to McComb and opened his own 64 slice CT scanner. This means NRMC's machine is vastly underused. Then Dr Rubinstein came and started using the cath lab and again was making a lot of money for the hospital - obviously he had to go as well. If only the hospital had someone competent doing their billing, they would be rolling in the dough. Now they have fired their cath lab director and moved the other cath lab personnell ( only a matter of time before they leave) - I guess this will help send all this profitable business to Riverpark which now has the only cath lab in the area. Maybe Weaselman has stock in Riverpark - that would explain his actions in firing specialists and chasing others to competing facilities.
If he is serious about being open to any options, perhaps he should swallow his pride and approach Dr. Flattmann, Dr Rubinstein, and Dr Dulam about returning to this facility. Then perhaps the OR and cath lab would again be busy and profitable and help support some of the uncompensated care the hospital is obligated to provide by virtue of being the county hospital. Even better, the interim CEO (hopefully there will be one soon) could make these overtures since he will have a clean slate.
Just a thought - does anyone have a better one?....
On Attorney: Hospital plan should be decided upon in the next 30 days