By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital ended yet another month with a significant deficit, to the tune of $860,718, which puts them $2,861,804 for the year.

MMH Chief Financial Officer Pat Facteau attributed the loss to several factors, including pension costs above their expectations, high costs due to the employee health insurance plan and elimination of the Medicare low volume adjustment.

“As we had talked about in the past, estimated pension expenses of $3 million came in at $3.8 million,” he said. The hospital received notice of the higher payments in September and they have been paying out an extra $160,000 per month as a result, Facteau said.

Their self-insured employee health plan is once again contributing to the hospital taking a monthly loss.

“Utilization of the health insurance continues to be an issue,” MMH CEO Bob Wolleben said, adding that they have “really sick people” using the program who require a high degree of care. Facteau in past months cited health costs among reasons leading to monthly losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In a statement released after the Monday night Board of Managers meeting, MMH CEO Bob Wolleben said that and the Medicare Low Volume Adjustment elimination caused nearly half of the October deficit.

“Today we are faced with added expenses due to elimination of the Medicare Low Volume Adjustment and added benefit costs that were $400,000 over what we planned for,” he said in the news release.

The CFO said MMH is working on getting a dedicated hospitalist program that will focus on just hospitalized patients, but until they can, it will take away from the bottom line.

The news release given out at the meeting said they have added two hospitalists.

“MMH welcomes both Dr. Ammar Kafa and Dr. Wai Kyaw as full time hospitalists,” the statement says, adding that this “will reduce … expenses for this service.”

Wolleben gave a report showing that surgeries are lagging behind the same time last year, but he said he thinks they could finish the year ahead. They have performed 1,859 procedures through Oct. 31, compared to 1,893 for the same time period last year.

“Surgeries are lagging behind. I think that’s going to catch up … it’s a horse race to the end of the year,” he said, adding that he is “cautiously optimistic” of finishing ahead of 2016’s number.

His presentation showed that admissions and emergency visits were up compared to the same time last year. Admissions were 1,908 through Oct. 31 and were at 1,848 through the same time last year. Emergency visits were at 13,619 through Oct. 31 and were at 13,473 through Oct. 31, 2016.

During Facteau’s presentation as part of the regular agenda, he kept focus on what he and MMH officials see as the positive things happening at the hospital.

“Some issues we continue to have growth in, we’re still growing the clinics,” he said. “We had a good cash month, $4.5 million,” referring to cash on hand.

Their clinical visits for the month were up, 4,957 compared to the budgeted 3,124. All outpatient registrations, which includes clinics, came in at 12,253 for the month compared to the budgeted 10,207. Both clinical visits and overall outpatient registrations were up last month compared to the same month in 2016, according to a financial and statistical summary made public at Monday’s meeting.

Facteau said they are also seeing results out of acquiring the St. Lawrence Internists clinic, which he says gets a better insurance reimbursement rate than other clinics. In October, the clinic saw 1,436 visits, the statement reads.

Wolleben during his report touted the hospital’s new Da Vinci surgical robot. The statement said it’s used for minimally invasive gynecological, urological and general surgical procedures.