PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Aroostook Medical Center is taking steps to close a $1 million budget shortfall.
The health care organization is carefully watching capital and discretionary spending and any new hiring decisions through the end of the fiscal year, according to Jason Parent, TAMC’s director of advancement.
Management and nonunion employees who have accumulated unused vacation time have been directed to use paid vacation days accrued in 2012 before the end of the year, Parent said.
Earned time off is considered a financial liability on their books.
The paid leave directive affects about half of TAMC’s 1,023 employees throughout Aroostook County, he said. In addition to its 89-bed A.R. Gould Memorial Hospital, TAMC also operates a walk-in clinic in Presque Isle, health centers in Mars Hill, Fort Fairfield, Caribou and Ashland, and a long-term care facility in Mars Hill.
The health care organization is owed $10.4 million by the state through Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor jointly operated by the state and federal governments, Parent said.
Managers were notified of the cost-cutting effort on May 18, with an effective date of May 21. The paid leave directive will continue through the end of this fiscal year, which is Sept. 30, Parent said.
“There is no impact on patient care,” he said.
The introduction of new technology and TAMC’s exploration of alternative fuel sources to heat its Presque Isle campus also should save costs, he said. The cost-saving measures are expected to land the hospital back in the black by the end of the fiscal year.
On the revenue side, TAMC anticipates that the addition of six new physicians and new procedures, including arthroscopic and female incontinence surgeries, will generate additional money, he said.
“We are working diligently to address this, both with the addition of new physicians and new procedures and appropriate belt-tightening measures,” TAMC President and CEO Sylvia Getman said in a statement. “I am very proud of the employees of TAMC and their willingness to work with us to address this temporary gap.”
The belt-tightening at TAMC, which is part of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, follows job cuts last week at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta and at Rockport-based Pen Bay Healthcare in February.
We need our hospital up here in Presque Isle. I hope they eventually collect the past due Medicaid debt that’s owed to them. It’s a disgrace LePage cut MaineCare funding from so many people. That will only create more loss of revenue for all of Maine’s hospials.
And EMMC wonders why so many people are going to St Joe’s for their care. This one does not require a PHD to figure out, does it ?
OMG it’s not LaPages fault !
Go to Cary, Houlton or if you can drive to Bangor. Smartest thing you could do for yourselves.
It kinda is, he is the one who is supposed to make sure the bills are getting paid and from the amount owed to the hospital I think he is behind on the bills.
This hospital started spending crazy years before LePage became Gov. (Cant believe I am defending LePage for anything)…All they care about is what the place looks like from the outside…not the so called care you get on the inside. They have spent more money on the outside structure of the place the past 15 years than on anything else…if you have problems bigger than a birth (and even then I question that!) they cant handle it and send the paitent to Bangor anyways!! I agee with David Gregg…go somewhere else…
But if they are owed 10 million dollars maybe other things could improve if they were paid.
LePage frove the legislature to change the health insurance rules so the average person in this state can’t affode it. He rapped DHHS so there was no help there for someone without the funds to get healthcare. What did you think the sick in those circumstances would do? Curl up in a corner and die? They go to emergency rooms for help which puts the burdon on them! If you don’t blame LePug and his gangsters who is to blame?
Hmm I don’t know… maybe start at the top and work your way down? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be ? Owners! Then they can blame accountants :P
-Peace
Spend more on new staff that will put you back in the black. Not
If the state paid them what was owed they would be making a nice profit.
Actually if there is only a $1M dollar gap and the state owes TAMC over $10M I say someone is doing their job and staying on budget and saving to boot. Seems they are in much better shape than a lot of small rural hospitals that really need that money the state owes. Oh wait sorry we can’t pay cause we bought a rail bed for $20M+.
I’m not an accountant but I think the Medicaid money owed the hospital by the State is already factored into their accounting. I would show up as an account receivable on their balance sheet. Even if the State paid it all off tomorrow, it wouldn’t change the current operating budget $1,000,000 shortfall. It would however add to their available cash.
start charging patients $10 each for a band-aid…..oppps they already do…lol
Hospitals everywhere are suffering, cutting staff, and the same goes for all health cares services and our educational systems as well. Instead of focusing on making Americans healthier and smarter, Republicans are in the business of attacking liberals–and so we all sink down.
And obviously your in the business of attacking Republicans? Whats the difference? It is because WE all dont get along is why this country is the way it is. WE have allowed our hospitals to charge us $20 for a band-aid and $25 for a Tylenol…and this didnt “just happen” recently. This has been going on for years reguardless of ones political beliefs or who is Democrat or Republican as President.. I think WE all are to blame..not just Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Independants or whatever….just sayin..
Maybe if patients used their local provider or walk in care over using the ER, they hospitals wouldnt be left holding the bag for so many unpaid visits. Blame the politicians all you want…but look beyond that and see how deadbeats are fleecing the system
Amen.
I notice you said Amen to something calling other people deadbeats. You might want to read your Bible again. There is no condemnation in Christ. Also, it is our Christian duty to care for the less fortunate.
Even though I’m fully insured, I avoid TAMC at all costs. The waiting room is full of MaineCare recipients only, hollering parents, cranky children. And I’m not going to pay for their care. I will in the end through taxes, but I would prefer to go to my PCP on Monday morning for a 30 dollar co-pay than be subjected to watching how these dysfunctional people live in real person. Welfare is killing us and our funding. Oh, and there’s nothing better than finally getting into a room only shrouded with a curtain, concerned about a loved one, and hearing the unprofessional nursing banter about the occurrences of the night before. Save it for the break room.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
Republicans claim to love God, what appers to be their favorite pastime which, hardly, relates to God is judging those who are weaker than them, or their ability to control others. Eg, abortion, same sex marriage etc.
Who are you to speak for Republicans? Just because “some” Republicans (and that is those of power) do or say things you dont like doesnt mean all Republicans agree with it…just like they dont agree with what a Democrat has to say because its usually ignorent.
I think it is Both Republicans and Democrats responsibilty for how this country has turned out…stop using Republicans as your scapegoat…
Yeah, only “dyfunctional” people get MaineCare. You sound like a bundle of intelligence. Never mind the elders, legitimately disabled, and mentally ill.
I don’t mind helping the mentally ill or the elderly. I’m talking about the 30+ year old low life in a dirty tank top that decided to ride in our annual Memorial Day Parade to show off on a kid’s bike because he’s got nothing else (a car) obviously. People that need it, need it. He’s the baby daddy of at least one I’m sure. Not intelligent. It’s called an opinion. Subject: [bdn] Re: Presque Isle hospital faces $1M budget gap
It’s “your” Memorial Day parade. Gee, I didn’t know you and others who are special owned it. I think it’s amusing that some find the need to disparage those who are experiencing struggles. Ever think those in the dirty tank top may have some problems that aren’t evident to you? No, I am not talking about drug abuse.
I am in the County, and I can only speak for what I have observed is going on in the County.
These hospitals should be run out of business, is my impression. There is no social efficacy to bringing in large numbers of foreign doctors to treat Mainers. These people should all be sent home.
As for the sort of medicine being peddled in these bill-the-state hospitals, GOOD LUCK!
You won’t catch me checking into any one of them. I am sixty-two and have not seen a doctor over thirty years.
I value my life and health far too much to entrust it to these whacko-quacks who treat patients based on their level of insurance -for better and for worse-.
The whole billing system is about funny-money coming out of Washington D.C. -that is being funneled through DHHS and is ruining Maine’s standard of living with rampant food-fuel inflation. All the money these hospitals bill is being printed up daily by the U.S. Treasury. That’s why we have $4 gasoline and $3 bread -and- completely unaffordable health care, that is not really health care at all.
The whole U.S. medical system needs to be torn down. So, to hear these TAMC losers are begging for another million dollars in state money -doesn’t surprise me at all-.
That’s the business Maine doctors are in, begging for money from the state.
Seriously if you send the so called “foreign” doctors “..back to where they came from…” there would be no doctors in The County. Most of those “horrible” foreigners do a better job than the American doctors.
Diane- None of these doctors does a very good job when we look at the ethical issues of medical care as it is practiced, and the effect that sort of medical care is having on the human future. In fact, it is a dead end for humanity.
All these doctors and their practices are doing far more to spread disease than they are to add to the overall quality of life for humans either now or in the future.
The ethical edict to “do no harm” is being subjugated to the bean-counter’s axiom of -do whatever the hospital can bill for- SERIOUSLY as you say.
Scapegoating so called “foreign”‘ doctors is unethical period. I WILL reiterate the” foreign” doctors in The County do a better job than the so called “American ” doctors you are supporting. By “American” I am somewhat sure you mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
Diane-
Foreign doctors are but a vile symptom of the problem.
They all should be run out of the country. They do not belong here. They were recruited to come here by greedy medical firms. There are plenty of smart American kids who should have been given the chance to fill those positions. But medical schools are corrupt. And they are made corrupt by a corrupt medical establishment.
American students are educated well enough to see through the facade of the phony medical care being sold through medical institutions all over this country. Becoming a doctor in this country is seen as selling-out to the greed and corruption -the practice of American medicine represents-.
Doctors are not benefiting society. They are benefiting the medical industrial complex.
Patients are not being served. Patients are being milked like cows, or they are having life’s blood drained as if by Lamprey Eels. Patients are being cultivated for profit. Patients are being created with phony medical procedures, diseases and practices that have quite literally 0% credibility.
Look at Statins! These drugs have turned millions of patients into freaked-out, near brain dead diabetics.
Look at all the heart operations performed in this country that have been shown not to improve either life expectancy or quality of life.
Look at the highly addictive synthetic opiates and what they are doing to our society.
Look at the damage being caused by so-called anti-depressant medications that are chemically lobotomizing patients right and left, literally reducing the IQ and perception of the young and old alike.
–You can say foreign doctors are better than County-raised doctors all you want. These foreign doctors are coming here and practicing medicine that is killing hundreds of thousands (if not millions who are less-well documented) of Americans every year BECAUSE the practice of American medicine is not ethical -it is profit driven in the most greedy and rapacious sense.
TAMC is one of the worst examples of a Maine medical institution there is. And now the rapacious corporation behind TMAC has sent some Massachusetts hospital bureaucrat up here to run the medical swindle.
Send her packing. Send her home to -lovely- Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney passed mandatory medical insurance for the enfeebled peasants of the Commonwealth where freedom means -you will support these criminal enterprises posing as medical establishments, -or- you will pay the price for not supporting them!
Not one of these medical people, regardless their age, will swim with me. This link is me swimming at age sixty-two. This is my workout five nights a week. I swim exactly like this for an hour straight non-stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq-y68xrZgw&feature=youtu.be
I do agree that there is a need for a more holistic approach to medicine in The United States AND the pharmaceutical industry is corrupt, BUT when it comes down to it The Western Medical approach to trauma etc is a good model. For instance if someone needs an emergenncy appendectomy, what model will work the best?
Diane-
You are only beginning to fathom the problem of efficacy in medicine.
The truth is, for every REAL emergency appendectomy, a thousand phony appendectomies are being perform, killing more people than the unlikely occurrence of a medically unassisted death.
That is the real truth. These doctors tell survivors of their -cut-’em-open- hack procedures, “You would have died,” and the myth of survival-efficacy is perpetuated through another medical fraud and fairytale.
Americans have been duped, wholesale, and strung-up upside down so their pockets empty and the state can be billed yet again.
Look at me. I am sixty-two years old. I will never see another doctor as long as I live. And my health and fitness surpass all but a very small percentage of physically mature American males, eighteen and older.
There is no efficacy in American medicine. TAMC should be shuttered.
Instead TMAC is allowed to be a breeding ground for super-bugs, and a perveyor of every sort of disease known to man -and then some-. TMAC is creating genetic abnormalities in the human genome with chemicals treatments, X-rays and CAT scan machines.
Big medicine is a self-perpetuating House of Medical Horrors. Frankenstein-medicine is being practiced at TMAC. And the survival-victims of it come away swearing they would have died, because that is what these lying doctors tell them.
Bring me the doctor -any age- from TMAC that will swim with me. I will show them what health is.
Thanks for a good tussle with this. -Don Robertson -Limestone, Maine
Absolute power corrupts, but I am fascinated how Republicans desire to limit access to reproductive health and deny gay couples the rights married heterosexual couples enjoy.
Wow yet another easy fix put up a sign we do not take Medicare.