Hospital's contract labor stays high

• Continued staffing shortages mean the hospital spends more money to hire contract employees to cover all shifts.

By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

Board members again raised their eyebrows Tuesday at the amount of money spent to pay contracted employees, hired to fill staffing gaps at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County.

So far this year, contracted labor expenses at the hospital are in the millions of dollars. Whatever the expenses each year, they are not in the budget because hospital Chief Financial Officer Florence Kostic wants the costs to be in the open.

“We are working diligently to hire people,” she said. “Until then, the staff is working overtime. We have the contract staff to ensure patient care.”

An non-itemized, high-dollar expense raises a red flag that is hard to miss. Kostic said she could hide the contracted labor expense, but it would then be too easy to brush it aside without attempting to fix the situation that causes the hospital to hire contract employees. The remedy is in finding more nurses and physicians who agree to stay at the hospital for the long term, she said.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, hospital board members:

• Heard a report that the hospital’s effort to recover unpaid health coverage by patients has turned up about $643,000 of more than $6.9 million of bad debt. The amounts include debts incurred in multiple years.

• Saw a draft of a presentation planned for April 4 before the Carbon County Commission. The presentation outlines financial and equipment requests from hospital department heads.

• Noted that two physicians are in the final stages of paperwork to begin work at the hospital. Two more are in beginning or intermediate stages of evaluation.

• Made no decision on the employee health insurance plan. The board members plan to continue to evaluate staff comments and options of how best to cover the $80,000 increase. One idea is to charge 1 percent or less of each employee’s salary, across the board.

• Evaluated the progress of the Southeastern Wyoming Ambulance Service and the formation of its joint powers board. The ambulance has made 41 runs since December. The hospital stands to break even with expenses amounting to about $50,000.

• Accepted an adult home care policy that does not limit the number of hours hospital staff can provide care unless the hospital is short of employees. The policy arose out of the need to avoid patient claims of care discrimination.

• Agreed to pay $267,250 to URS Construction for stored material and subcontractor work for the energy savings project. Hospital officials are still waiting for design approval from the state in order to create a schedule for the installation of heating and ventilation equipment.
Consultant Joe Jones reported that positive asbestos samples on the third floor of the hospital would require a special type of removal.