MONROE — The state Auditor’s Office suggests that Monroe’s hospital consider cutting services to improve its financial situation, but the hospital’s chief executive says no such changes are planned.
The suggestion to make cuts came in a so-called management letter to the public hospital district dated March 17. The hospital, which for years has been known as Valley General Hospital, changed its name last month to EvergreenHealth Monroe, the final step in a business agreement to make the hospital part of Kirkland-based EvergreenHealth.
The auditor’s letter notes that the hospital has had financial losses dating back to 2010, with the biggest operating loss, $6.8 million, in 2013. The following year, the losses were cut to $443,426 out of a budget of nearly $39 million.
The Auditor’s Office called that change a substantial improvement over the previous year. Nevertheless, it recommended that the hospital district “make necessary cuts to expenditures and/or services” to strengthen its financial footing.
Eric Jensen, the hospital’s chief executive, said no cuts in services are planned, in part due to the changes the hospital is undergoing.
Voters in the public hospital district approved a tax increase in 2013, but the money from that increase didn’t come to the hospital until 2014, he said, and that is one of the factors behind the hospital’s financial improvement.
In addition, Kirkland’s Fairfax Hospital is scheduled to open a 34-bed psychiatric unit in the Monroe hospital by the end of this year.
“We’re excited about that,” Jensen said. “There’s a real need for in-patient mental health focused on geriatric patients.”
Fairfax will lease space from the hospital, paying about $500,000 a year. Fairfax also will contract for services such as housekeeping, laboratory and respiratory services and medical imaging, all of which will help improve the hospital’s finances, Jensen said.
Following the hospital’s March 2 affiliation with EvergreenHealth, “we’ll continue to identify some opportunities to reduce costs,” he said.
Jensen said he considers the hospital’s finances stabilized. “The hospital is not in financial crisis any more,” he said.
Services offered at the Monroe hospital have expanded over the past year, among them an outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program and another for patients with blood clots or blood disorders.
EvergreenHealth has announced plans to recruit four primary-care physicians to Monroe over the next year, Jensen said, as well as a physician specializing in obstetrics and an orthopedic surgeon.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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