By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital has been on the road to recovery for several months now, and its chief executive officer says it may soon be time to look beyond basic financial survival.

“We’re at a point now where it’s build-back time. How do we take care of our friends, neighbors and surrounding communities so they come here?” MMH CEO Robert Wollebin said.

“We’ve got to cut costs, but we’ve got to maintain services,” MMH Trustee Dave MacLennan said.

“We need to get back to a level of buying equipment and funding programs and we can’t do that yet,” Wollebin said. “We are focused on that like a laser beam … you can’t cut your way to success.”

One of the ways they are trying to rebuild is contracting with HMS Consulting to revamp their accounts receivable practices, MMH CFO Patrick Facteau told the board.

“We spent a lot of time with HMS … reviewing policies and how much money we’re getting from accounts receivable, improving allowances,” Facteau said. “All in all, it was a month we’re making progress on, we’re still doing a lot of things.”

In addition to that, MMH financial officials are keeping a close eye on patient cases, making sure they’re property coded for reimbursement purposes and getting them registered as inpatients instead of observation, if they are legally allowed.

Insurance companies are restricting inpatient registrations. Short-term stays that used to be considered inpatient and are reimbursed as such are now classified as observation visits.

Facteau said an inpatient reimbursement can get them as much as $11,000 in reimbursements, whereas observation brings in $1,100.

“That’s a substantial difference, but you’ve got to meet the criteria for it to be an admission,” Facteau said.

“A hundred inpatients turns into a million-and-a-half dollars for us,” MMH Trustee Ed Hamel said.

In August, they budgeted for 185 inpatients and actually got 172. For observation visits, they planned on 67 but saw 79.

“We’d be a lot healthier if inpatient visits were up 18 percent. That’s where the money is,” said Trustee Gary Borgosz, who is also on the finance committee.

Some of the members said they think a way to get there is simple word of mouth.

“Make sure you’re talking well about the hospital … I’ve worked at other ones … this is a good hospital, believe me,” Hamel said. “I think sometimes we look down on it a little but. I don’t know why we do, maybe it’s just politics.”

Overall, MMH had a decent month in August. They tallied about $65,000 in the black. In August 2014, their books showed a $322,000 deficit for the month.

“Overall we had a decent month, we showed a bottom line profit of $65,000, which puts us close to a break even for the year,” Borgosz said.