Hospital, clinic activity beginning to pick back up

Perkins County Health Services CEO Neil Hilton said activity at the hospital and clinics is beginning to pick back up.

He told county commissioners last week that numbers of visits, procedures and other services dropped in direct correlation to the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Things were pretty normal until boys state basketball tournament in mid-March. That’s when things began to change, Hilton said. 

After cases were diagnosed in the Crofton area in people who attended the girls state basketball tournament, the NSAA closed the boys’ tournament, allowing only family members to attend.

He said that’s when people really began to take notice of the pandemic and changed their patterns and habits.

Average weekly revenue for the hospital and clinic was running $690,650. In the week of March 8-14, revenue dropped by $176,271 (-26%).

For every week thereafter, through April 25, weekly revenue dropped, dropping as much as $312,268 or 45% off the pre-Covid-19 average. 

From the week beginning March 8 through the week ending April 25, weekly gross revenue slid by a total of $1.614 million.

Hilton pointed out that lost revenue resulted in lost opportunity for profit and was not a direct loss to the bottom line. 

At the end of March, total patient revenue from all sources was actually up $1.69 million for the 2019-2020 fiscal year compared to the 2018-2019 fiscal year, he noted.

A look at department activity served as an indicator of the reluctance of people to come to the hospital or clinic as the fear of the coronavirus increased. 

Total weekly visits at the Grant medical clinic averaged 226 per week prior to mid-March. In early April, that dropped to just 90 visits. 

The outpatient speciality clinics averaged 100 weekly visit pre-COVID-19. 

At one point, only two of the seven speciality clinics were visiting the hospital. That resulted in just 36 patients being seen at the low point.

Hilton said that is beginning to swing back the other way as more clinic are turning to operation.  

Speciality clinics represent a key profit generator for the hospital so it’s important for those clinics to resume. 

The number of scope procedures and elective surgeries dropped off significantly as well. 

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