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County commissioners reject making UMC a nonprofit entity
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Feb. 3, 2011 | 7:45 a.m.
A bleak forecast that University Medical Center could close in three years if it doesn't change course didn't persuade Clark County commissioners Wednesday to transform the public hospital into a nonprofit entity.
A consultant presented a report to commissioners predicting that UMC will rack up a $100 million operating deficit by 2014. UMC lost more than $70 million last year, mostly because it treats indigent and uninsured patients.
UMC's best chance for survival is to become a public benefit corporation, known as a 501(c)(3), with an independent governing board, said representatives of FTI Healthcare, a Tennessee-based firm county officials hired last year to study the hospital.
UMC could operate more like a business, compete better with private hospitals and attract high-caliber doctors and paying patients, said Kerry Shannon, FTI's senior managing director.
"You don't have a whole lot of time," Shannon said. "You're at a crisis. I won't sugarcoat it."
Commissioners agreed that UMC is in a dire situation, but most said they were unconvinced that turning it into a nonprofit entity was the answer. They requested more information before making a decision.
Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said a UMC advisory board was formed recently and has had little time to delve into the hospital's daily operations. Going the next step and creating a governing board doesn't seem like a cure-all, she said.
"Just changing the governance will not fix the funding part of UMC," Giunchigliani said.
Commissioners asked that the advisory board, hospital executives, medical staff, union leaders and others meet to discuss what could result from turning UMC into a 501(c)(3).
Clifford Stromberg, an attorney working with FTI, said there is a clear difference between a board that advises and one that governs. A governing board could make the decisions needed to aid UMC's transformation into a teaching and research hospital, he said.
The board could have business people, doctors, nurses, health care experts and a couple of commissioners, Stromberg said.
Commissioners Susan Brager and Mary Beth Scow supported FTI's proposed change.
Brager said people tend to view county hospitals as lower-tier. Converting UMC to a nonprofit business would boost its reputation and image, she said.
Commissioner Larry Brown asked county staff to research the impacts of UMC closing. For example, how would it affect patient care in the Las Vegas Valley, and how much would the county have to pay private hospitals for indigent services, he said.
Brown noted that labor is a key expense, along with serving uninsured patients. A public hospital might not be in the business of making money, but neither can the county afford to pay $80 million in subsidies, he said.
"The urgency has always been there," Brown said. "Unless something is done, it's unsustainable."
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NV is ranks #1 in illegal immigrants if we didn't have to pay for them to have babies and all other medical care not only would the UMC profit but there wouldn't be as many people on welfare. Get rid of the illegals and our entire state would profit the list in never ending!
From remarks I heard from some of the commissioners, they seem to have adopted the position that "we want to keep doing things the same old way, but get different results".
SAVE UMC. Investigate, arrest and deport illegals STEALING EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES at UMC. Start with the expensive recurring procedures like dialysis. The illegals will keep coming until we tell them NO and deport them.
the term "non-profit" is a misnomer - it really is a "not-for-profit" meaning that revenue is invested back into the organization instead of paid out to investors. That means that a not-for-profit organization must still make profit in order to stay in existence. Since UMC cannot at least break even, it is not likely it will be successful as a not-for-profit organization. Not-for-profits rely upon donations from the local community - UMC would not be successful in obtaining donations from this community. It is obvious that UMC needs to be closed now, and the county issue vouchers which would have a trickle-down effect in filling vacant beds at all area hospitals.
This is really sad, folks. Losing UMC will also mean losing a lot of physicians, because dozens of residents at UMC, the only allopathic residency hospital in southern Nevada, who would have to go elsewhere (i.e. out of state to another qualified residency program) -meaning fewer doctors deciding to stay in Vegas and fewer with home grown connections. I don't understand the reasoning bhind rejecting a non-profit status. Indigents (and everyone else in that area) will be a lot worse off when the hospital closes.
Geez, "operate it like a business?' What the hell is a hospital but a business? Clark County should get out of the hospital business and every other business that competes with private enterprise and do what it does best - screw everything up while wasting our tax dollars. Government bureaucrats! Don't you just love 'em?
To Native Nevadan; in regurads to your comment that you "don't see anyone who has the foggiest clue about hospital administration", you are being way to nice. Personally, I don't see anyone on the CCC who knows anything about hospital administration or for that matter anything else. And to think some of them want to be mayor when really most of them are nothing more than professional politicians who couldn't hold a real job no matter how hard they tried.
UMC Hospital is a non profiting entity, and the revenue figures prove it. How could anyone seriously expect that hospital to turn a profit, given its large clientele of indigents?
If UMC closed, and those same patients were shuttled to other area hospitals, where they could now not be refused admission due to indigent status, how much would it cost those other hospitals in non reimbursed charges? How would that affect the charges that would have to be assessed to paying patients and their insurers?
It is really necessary to look at what impact on the community and its hospitals, the closure of UMC would have. So far what we are seeing is a lot of posturing, at a time of a severe budget crisis.
The county must find a way to keep UMC open, or it will simply spread the problem to other area hospitals, which will wreak havoc with the local health care system. This will affect anyone in the community seeking hospital care, with an acute impact on emergency wards, which are already inappropriately used for primary care by the uninsured. We have a problem now, but it will get far worse, if UMC is shuttered.
I love it -- pay experts hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the issue, and then reject the experts' findings and recommendations. We must have some pretty smart (or arrogant) County Commissioners who know better than experts in the field. Let's see, we have a cowboy, a union shill, a AAA baseball player, a realtor, a -- oh forget it -- I still don't know what Weekly is, a PTA president and a businessman. What I don't see is anyone who has the foggiest clue about hospital administration.