Page 28 - BusinessWest July 20, 2020

Joanne Marqusee says she hopes patient volume returns not because of the revenue issue, but because patients shouldn’t forgo necessary
care.
es in place, just like any other business. Look at restaurants — the doors were closed, but they still had rent, utilities, all the other expenses, and the employees.”
Through May, Mercy saw a $25 million reduc- tion in revenues due to pandemic-related reduc- tions in services — and plummeting volume in the ER, a development that surprised hospital officials nationwide. At Mercy, daily Emergency Department cases dropped from a typical aver- age of between 225 and 250 to around 100 to 120.
“Those slowly crept back up — we’re at 150 to 180 on a daily basis, so we’re not at full capac- ity, and there’s a lot of pent-up demand. Our business is coming back, but we lost a lot of revenues.”
Joanne Marqusee, president and CEO
of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, said the hit has been significant. Through May, the facil- ity recorded a loss of $18 million, partly due to COVID-related costs, but mostly because of lost volume. That num- ber would be worse if not for $5.5 million in federal support.
“But that in no way covers our losses,”
she added, noting that Cooley Dickinson Health Care could see a revenue shortfall of well above $30 million for the fiscal year end-
ing on Sept. 30.
“We’re now planning for a fiscal-year 2021
budget and considering a number of measures to mitigate some of this — things like hiring freezes and reducing a lot of discretionary expenses. Everywhere we can hold off on spending, we have,” she went on, noting that service hours could be temporarily curtailed in some services, while employees making more than $26.50 per hour will forgo raises for the time being.
While that move shaves some costs while pro- tecting lower-paid employees, it doesn’t make nearly enough of a dent, Marqusee noted. “So we’re looking at ways to further reduce expenses. But the work we’re doing already will certainly
have an impact.”
DiStefano said Mercy has also had to take
steps like furloughs and reducing hours to miti- gate the losses. “We did everything we could
to help employees keep their benefits in place. But employees are the number-one cost of a typical hospital — about 50% to 60% of the cost structure.”
“
what are termed non-urgent
cases, which usually help feed and support what a hospital does in
its normal, day-to-day business — has been shorted, leaving us with a great revenue shortfall.”
Holyoke Medical Center has been losing roughly $6.5 million per month since services were curtailed back in March, President and CEO Spiros Hatiras said. But the community hospital did take some steps early on to gird against the damage.
“We were probably the first hospital in the area to furlough folks; we didn’t hold off because we saw it was absolutely important to be finan- cially viable because we don’t have a parent com- pany to spot us money,” he told BusinessWest,
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1Based on testing performed by LMS Technologies, April 2020.
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JULY 20, 2020 27