Page 2: On the mend
You knew something had changed when suddenly, the McFlex Parcel exchange between Mammoth Hospital and the Town of Mammoth Lakes was back on the table this summer.
The Hospital had to drop out of the McFlex deal and sell its stake in the 10-acre parcel to the Town in 2007 during the height of the recession. A caveat of the deal was that the Hospital had a five-year option to buy back its three-acre portion. The price is approximately $1.8 million.
The parcel is critical to future expansion plans according to Mammoth Hospital CEO Gary Boyd.
As Boyd said in an interview last week, “We’ve worked hard the past two or three years to get our house in order.”
And the numbers back it up.
In 2008, Mammoth Hospital had 62 days cash on hand (a measure of the average number of days the Hospital could operate without additional receipts). Today, it has 157 days cash on hand.
Net days in A/R (Accounts Receivables) has fallen in the same period from 60.7 to 44.5.
Its ratio of assets to obligations has risen from 2.2:1 to 3.4:1.
Total profit margin was negative in 2009 but is 9.3% in the black for 2011.
Getting the books in order has not made him popular. “We went through some layoffs to get costs down,” he said. While employee satisfaction has improved over the past three years, Boyd would like to do better.
Satisfaction with immediate supervisors, he says, is higher than satisfaction with upper management.
Nevertheless, Boyd points to some initiatives which should make employees happier:
1. The Hospital is giving about 3-4%/year in wage increases.
2. The Hospital has initiated a “success sharing” program based, he said, upon fiscal performance and employee satisfation. Some full-time employees were entitled to a $1,200 bonus this year.
The strength of the Hospital, he says, has always been in its great doctors. “And for a rural hospital, we offer a lot of services.”
Great doctors also tend to recruit great doctors. Witness Dr. Andrew Bourne’s recent recruitment of OB/GYN Martha Kim from Eugene, Ore., and Dr. Mike Karch’s recruitment of Orthopedic Surgeon Tim Crall.
Karch, said Boyd, knew Crall’s immediate supervisor at his last place of work in Taos, New Mexico.
Despite the recent turnaround, Boyd is ever cautious. “I worry about money all the time,” he said. “I battle with providers all the time. 15% of our patients are MediCal patients, and the state wishes to cut its MediCal reimbursement rates by 10%.”
The federal government is also contemplating a cut in reimbursement for Medicare patients at Critical Access Hospitals such as Mammoth (defined as hospitals with fewer than 25 beds located at least 35 miles from the nearest hospital).
The most telling part of the interview occurred when Boyd asked if I would like a cup of coffee. I said yes. He then asked one of his adminstrative assistants via intercom to bring a cup. I noticed that it took several minutes.
Boyd pretty much read my mind. He said it took awhile because he didn’t want a coffeemaker in the administrative offices. He said the offices were too isolating as it was and that he wanted administrative personnel to see and be seen.
Perhaps this is why Boyd is also the Not So Undercover Boss one day each month, working in a different department. He traditionally spends every President’s Day in the ER.
As for the “Lose it With Gary” teaser on the front page, he is currently trying to drop 20 pounds.
By training, Boyd is an X-Ray technician. His license is still current.
The Hospital has won a Press Ganey Summit Award for patient satisfaction in 2010 and 2011.
