By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA — Massena Memorial Hospital saw its biggest monthly loss of the year in August $635,669, which pushed the hospital’s books $1.3 million into the negative year to date.

MMH Chief Financial Officer Patrick Facteau told the Board of Managers on Monday that in addition to inpatient volumes below projected levels, they are still dealing with high costs from their self-insured employed health plan and an $800,000 hike in their state retirement payment.

“Some key factors for the month, volumes were low … We’re still ahead of the year by 6.2 percent. Volumes have been good for the year,” Facteau told the board.

Fact eau said because of four cases, they have paid $500,000 more this year toward their employee health plan than last year. The August total was $100,000 of that.

They also had to pitch $160,000 toward the state retirement plan where they were expecting a $3 million bill for the year but have learned it will be $3.8 million.

He said they also received some bad news looking forward.

“We’ve also received notification from the feds, part of our reimbursement rates called low volume … and it appears Oct. 1 we’ll be starting to get a reduction in that by $800,000,” he said.

Low Volume Adjustment is a Medicare reimbursement.

A financial and statistical summary for August shows that their outpatient and observation numbers for the month were ahead of projections, despite a 22 percent lag in inpatient cases.

Observation visits came in at 78, just ahead of the budgeted 75.

Total outpatient registrations totaled 11,914, about 14 percent ahead of the anticipated 10,411.

Their hospital-based clinics handled 4,681 patients, about 54 percent ahead of the planned 3,025.