By Roy McQueen

SDN Publisher

Hospital leadership and the need to reduce bad debt were the focus of this morning’s two-hour meeting of the Cogdell Memorial Hospital board of managers.

A short-list of six candidates will be interviewed for chief executive officer, a post vacant since Cogdell severed its 13-year affiliation with Covenant Health Systems last December.

The board agreed to set up interviews quickly, hopefully having the interview process completed within the next two weeks.

The six finalists are Donald Griffin of The Woodlands, Carol Hanes of Linden, Larry Knetzer of Dumas, James Koulovatos of Lindsay, Okla., William Moore of Comanche and James Robinson Sr. of Keller.

The board narrowed the field from an original list of 36 applicants received by TORCH, a search firm hired by the hospital. The firm will set up the interviews, and the board indicated it would like to have two interviews a day.

The board also was introduced to Richard Murphy of Midland who will serve as interim chief financial officer. Ron Hunt of Ennis, who has served as interim CFO since December, will relocate to East Texas and today was his last at Cogdell.

Murphy said he would serve until the new CEO had a opportunity to hire a permanent financial officer.

The board also approved a contract that will be offered to Scott Gordon, a physician’s assistant, who will see patients in the rural health clinic.

Gordon, who now lives in Fritch, has visited the hospital and is expected to sign the agreement and be on the job in Snyder shortly after giving a 30-day notice.

The contract calls for an annual salary of $85,000 and moving expense of up to $3,500. Also if the average number of patients per day exceeds 24 in any month, the rural clinic provider would be paid $30 per patient over 24. The rural health clinic averages 13 patients daily.

During the financial report, Hunt noted that the hospital revenues in January were $1.3 million, down $209,036 from the prior year.

Net loss for the first month of 2004 was $274,661. Bad debt expense for the month was $360,891, an increase of $206,705 for the same period last year.

Hunt told the board that practices are being put in place in the business office in an effort to trim bad debt and also to reduce the number of days that charges go unbilled.

“That would improve our cash flow,” Hunt said. Current gross days for billing is 76 and the interim CFO said 40 to 50 days would be a more acceptable time period.

Hunt estimated that $1.4 in services currently are unbilled and that could mean an additional $300,000 to $400,000 in funds if the billing could go out more quickly.

Hunt suggested that the board might want to consider reducing the number of days that physicians have to complete patient charts. The policy is now 30 days.

The board approved two capital expenditures - $16,987 for teleradiology equipment and $17,995 for a video gastroscope. The former is used to send digital x-rays for evaluation by radiologists in Abilene.

The board also approved submission of an application for a $5,000 grant from the Texas Department of Rural Community Affairs.

The funds would be used to determine if it would be advantageous to change the hospital’s status from sole community provider to critical access. The grant application has been prepared by J.B. Tate Jr. and will be submitted Friday.

New board member Wade Warren was named as the board’s representative on the Cogdell Foundation.

Cheryl Chance, director of nurses who also is interim CEO, reported that the number of external agency nurses utilized in January were down significantly, but that internal agency usage was up.

Chairman Dink Foree presided and board members present were Dr. Charles Church, Bo Robinson, Terry Williams, Warren and Mark Cullifer.