Finances as related to the ongoing COVID-19 response highlighted the Newman Regional Health Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.
Chief Financial Officer Holly French tells KVOE News the hospital recently got some good news in how it could treat money for the Paycheck Protection Program. The early guidance was the hospital would have to take that funding into consideration for its cost report, which would have forced the hospital to pay the money back. That guidance has now changed.
This means the hospital can keep roughly $3 million it was planning to repay. Net income for August is now $3.6 million, favorable to budget by almost that amount, and the year-to-date net income is now $3.3 million, favorable to budget by almost $4.2 million despite operating expenses above budget and revenues — inpatient, outpatient and other — all below budget.
French says the hospital is currently sifting through recent guidance on CARES Act funding, notably on how Newman Regional Health calculates net revenues and net revenue loss. The hospital has been allowed to compare this year’s revenues to last year’s, as opposed to either prior year or budget, but it has to separate net income associated with patients from the rest of the budget.
French says the hospital is working on the 2021 budget with the understanding patient traffic may not fully return to normal until some time next year.
The hospital may run at or close to 90 percent of normal traffic for the next several months.
