Olympic Medical Center, a 126-bed hospital in Port Angeles, Wash., is down $7.9 million in the first four months of 2023, Peninsula Daily News reported June 17.
That is compared to a $16.1 million loss in 2022, according to the hospital's CEO Darryl Wolfe. He addressed the financial crisis at a gathering of 11 healthcare and community leaders June 15.
Stagnant Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates and fewer commercially insured patients have contributed to the losses, but high labor costs are the hospital's primary problem, according to Mr. Wolfe. Employee costs as a percentage of revenues have increased 10 percentage points as of late, and the hospital employs 78 travel workers whose wages cost $300,000 per week. The hospital, Clallam County's largest employer, currently has 275 open positions.
In addition, the hospital has paid more than $1 million due to a "huge liability" around a recent legal case, Mr. Wolfe said. Josiah Hill, MD, a former emergency room physician at the hospital, has been charged with five counts of indecent liberties by a healthcare provider and one count of second-degree rape. Three women have filed lawsuits against Dr. Hill or the hospital, which has since switched emergency room operators.
Mr. Wolfe says he will continue petitioning lawmakers for financial relief while implementing a two-phase plan to cut costs. Phase one is a hiring freeze that will replace contract workers with permanent ones, monitor overtime closely, restructure debt, and finish some capital projects while ending others. Phase two will eliminate redundancies in services offered at other locations nearby, and cut hours in other services — a "strategic redeployment" of staff and hours, according to the CEO.
"There is a strategic way to do this," Mr. Wolfe said. "We need to right-size expectations."