Hospital budget, tax rate adopted
By Melinda L. Lucas
With very little discussion, directors of the Shackelford County Hospital District okayed the proposed budgets for both the district and the clinic, along with the tax rate, at a meeting on Monday, Sept. 20.
A budget of $2,820,070 was approved during the district portion of Monday’s session, following an earlier clinic session that included approval of a $827,000 budget for fiscal year 2022.
The proposed tax rate of 20.67 cents, which is the no-new-revenue calculation, was adopted on a motion by Mike Folsom.
Clinic Report
Brandi Green and Claire Ware, who have helped manage clinic operations since hospital administrator Jera Fairley left, asked the board to reconsider allowing acceptance of various cost sharing insurance programs.
Green said that the board had been advised about six months ago that the clinic should no longer file on Medi-Share and other similar programs, with patients instead filing for reimbursement.
However, Ware and Green said that the reimbursement process is “frustrating for us and for patients, and requires a lot of man hours” for the clinic staff.
Ware recommended that the clinic be allowed to start taking Medi-Share and other expense-sharing programs, stating that what is not paid by the companies will be billed to the patients.
Directors granted the request.
Other Business
•There were closed sessions at the ends of both portions of the meeting involving personnel, but no action was taken.
•Ware and Green presented a new clinic billing option but will bring back more information to the next meeting.
•Ware reported that the staff is monitoring closely the number of COVID tests they have and are using them only on symtomatic patients, sending the others to the EMS for testing. She added that the clinic is moving to a type of test that is considerably less expensive but does not utilize the $22,000 machine purchased by the district last September.
•District secretary Regina Whitt explained that COVID tests are only administered during office hours with an appointment because the EMS staff on duty would not be able to fill out the required forms and perform the tests after hours while still being able to respond to 911 calls.
