Comments by barnabas
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Posted on February 27 at 11:35 a.m.
It seems every post thus far has focused on someone or something to blame: Quorum or the Board of Trustees or the city attorney or the Board of Supervisors or the lackluster performance of employees or........do you see where I'm going with this? As a former employee at NRMC, let me speak not to WHAT NRMC is but to WHO NRMC is. NRMC is a dedicated group of employees who are good people, people who, for the most part, show up every day to provide the best patient care they can, whether that entails the admissions process, transporting a patient, providing medical care on the floor, accepting payment on bills, filling prescriptions, maintaining medical records, coordinating employee benefits, greeting family members in the Gift Shop with a gracious smile and a kind word...I could go on and on.
Every post seems to be leaving out the most important element - the people who, just like you and me, have children in school and mortgages to pay and groceries to buy and church to attend and parents to care for and life to live. So, please do more than make this discussion a sterile analysis of the "business" debacle, though it certainly is one. Please remember the employees who, even now, are doing their jobs in the midst of this turmoil of uncertainty. Wish the best not only for Natchez, but wish the best for these people who are not sure of their vocational futures. Think of them when you debate what the best course of action might be.
Are there employees whose performance is not up to standard? Yes. Is the management provided by Quorum part of the problem? Yes. Does the Board of Trustees have culpability in the problems at hand? Yes. The fact of the matter is that the truth is likely a combination of all our opinions as to how NRMC has arrived at this point.
My wish is for all involved to do the thing that not many seem to want to do in today's society: step up to the plate, own your part in the problem, work as a team and be kind in this difficult process. Difficult decisions and days lie ahead. Easy answers are not available. But one thing is certain.....the great people who are NRMC will always get my vote of support for being my friends.
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Posted on February 28 at 7:59 p.m.
One thing in all of this that keeps bothering me is the constant excuse that the hospital only collected 46% of its
$113 million in billings. That seems too easy; look back over several years and compare the billing/collection ratio and see if it is consistent. If it is, why is this uncollectible revenue suddenly the only big bad wolf in this problem? Have the upper management/Board of Trustees adjusted spending accordingly to account for uncollected revenue? And why are the 2007 financials being restated? Have we just discovered that these receivables need to be written off or do other accounting errors exist that require this restatement?
Point: this problem is much more complex than uncollected billings. So, why don't the powers that be fully disclose the depth of the issues.
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