By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital will spend $295,000 to upgrade their billing software, in an attempt to stave off what some say has been a contributing factor to the hospital's grim financial state.

The MMH Board of Managers approved the spending on Monday.

The so-called "CDI" program will require a full-time registered nurse to code patient ailments and proposed treatments into a system that MMH board members say could bring bigger payouts from insurance companies.

"We have a billing issue. This is going to help our billing issue," board member Loretta Perez said.

Representatives of the unions representing MMH nurses and other employees have criticized the hospital's billing practices at public comment periods of Town Council meetings.

"If you didn't document it, you didn't do it," MMH director of health information Julie Zyzik said, referring to physicians. "It's vitally important we have that information in the records to support the care we gave.

"I don't think we want to put it on the back burner."

MMH board member Ed Hamel said Massena and Alice Hyde Medical Center, Malone are the only two hospitals in the North Country not using CDI.

He said Canton-Potsdam Hospital saw an extra $411,484 in their coffers over three years because of the software. Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Ogdensburg saw an extra $702,884 over an unspecified period, according to Hamel.

MMH CFO James Smith said the software should start turning a profit in three or four months. They don't have to start paying until then and will make 15 monthly installments.

Smith added that the yearly cost will be a registered nurse's salary, whose full-time job will be to code charts in the new system, the purchase of a laptop computer and $20,000 to $23,000 in maintenance fees.