Hospital district shows progress in solving cash flow issue

Ongoing problems with cash flow within Crook County Medical Services District are well on their way to being solved, according to a monthly report from CEO Micki Lyons.

In November, Lyons promised the Board of Trustees that progress would be visible by the end of the year, a prediction that proved to be accurate.

“We had to get it cleaned up, and so now we have a process,” she said. “…It’s slow, but we’re starting to see a positive change now.”

The cash flow problem was originally caused by issues with the electronic medical records system. At November’s meeting, Lyons requested a transfer of $500,000 from the trustee’s account, where the mill levy is stored, to cover payroll and other expenses.

Specifically, a large number of older items had not been billed, creating a situation where the accounts receivable was sitting at around $3 million – three times higher than what is considered normal for the district. This left the district short of cash on hand.

Lyons informed the board in November that changes were already being made, and assured trustees that they would see progress by the end of 2022. On Tuesday, she was able to confirm that progress.

“We dropped $460,000,” said Lyons. “That’s what I was anticipating would happen once we put those pieces in place in the business office, filling in those gaps and determining what we were missing.”

A new process has been instituted for doing statements, for example.

“We’re getting very few phone calls with complaints on statements now,” Lyons said. “There are still a few things happening that we’re trying to clean up…but other than that, we have a very good process.”

The process for collections has also now been figured out, she said, and those are being done every month.

The board has also recently taken steps to resolve the issue with the electronic medical records system. At a special meeting in December, officially moved to replace the system with a contract with Cerner. The new system was selected in the fall through an extensive vetting process that was undertaken by a steering committee made up of employees and led by Wesley Davis, DNP.