TONASKET – HCGR Healthcare was chosen by the North Valley Hospital Board to provide management services and to assist in turning the hospital around during a special board meeting on Thursday, May 20.
“The board decided to contract with HCGR Healthcare contingent upon working out the details of a satisfactory agreement,” Connie Maden, administrative services director, said. “The resolution stating their hiring will be read at the next meeting and then finalized at the subsequent meeting.”
Board Vice-Chair Herb Wandler said the contract is expected to be completed by the regular board meeting on Thursday, May 27, which begins at 7 p.m.
“We haven’t finalized the contract yet so we haven’t signed one yet,” Wandler said. “We’re working on specifics such as an exit clause and other items we want clarified before we’ll sign a contract. Bomi Bharucha is working on the contract right now.”
Wandler said HCGR Healthcare was chosen by the board among several different applications for the management position because they felt HCGR Healthcare was the most qualified for the job.
Last month, the company came to NVH to give a presentation to the board about the services they offer. After that meeting, Michael Zimmerman, chief turnaround officer, sent a letter to Helen Casey, the board chair.
“Frequently, small rural hospitals get into a cycle we refer to as self-liquidation, they are faced with declining revenues so they cut costs and programs, those cuts don’t solve the problem, so they cut more and decrease revenues even further,” Zimmerman wrote. “Eventually, there is nothing left to cut and the hospital is still losing money and so closure is the only alternative. At HCGR, we take the exact opposite approach; first we fix your revenue, which in the NVH case presents some tremendous opportunities. Then we look strategically at expenses, not all expenses are created equal and some cuts are very damaging to strategic reimbursement. Then we look for aggressive growth opportunities, which again in NVH’s case are rather substantial. Between appropriate reimbursement, strategic expense control and program and revenue growth, we are confident that the team at HCGR can put NVH back on track.”
HCGR Healthcare, a company from Arizona, claims to “bring extensive turnaround, intermediary, clinical and operational experience to the table” in the letter from Zimmerman. After a contract agreement is reached and signed, the company will place one of its employees in the open hospital administrator position and will then get to work on trying to fix the financial situation of the hospital.
For more information about HCGR Healthcare, call (602) 769-1994. Maden said the company does not have a Web site because they only take on the clients they can handle at one time and therefore do not advertise their services.
