Hospital Authority Meets With County Commission

Stephens County Hospital delivers its yearly report to the Stephens County Commission.

On Monday, the Authority met with county commissioners to provide that yearly update on the state of the hospital.

Administrator Lynne Anderson said the message she wanted to give to Stephens County Commissioners is that Stephens County Hospital had a good year and is trying to continue moving forward this coming year.

“We are doing well,” said Anderson. “We are still recovering financially. We have some things we want to focus on, which is quality, customer service, and that we need the support of the people that live in the county to help us continue to be a success.”

Anderson told county commissioners that the hospital had $1.1 million in net income in the last fiscal year, in large part because of extra one-time payments that were made by Medicare.

She said that the hospital is seeing a drop in a number of its volume indicators.

Anderson said that is not really a surprise.

“Some of them are things that every hospital in the country is seeing,” said Anderson. “As I said, inpatient admissions are going down and we think that is going to continue because people can get their health care as outpatients. What we need to do is be able to focus on those outpatient services so that our volumes there will increase.”

Those new services include things like a new general medicine practice and two new surgeons that have begun working in Toccoa.

Not all of the volume indicators were down, as Anderson says the hospital saw a slight increase in births and an increase in ER visits.

Also, Anderson said the hospital only has $4 million in long-term debt, that is scheduled to be paid off in 2027.

She said that figure is very low compared to most hospitals.

Overall, Stephens County Commissioner Dean Scarborough said he was impressed with what he heard.

“As always, this hospital is in good shape,” said Scarborough. “The new administrator seems to be doing a superb job. Just a very good report.”

Monday’s joint meeting between the hospital authority and county commissioners followed the regular monthly Stephens County Hospital Authority meeting.

During that meeting, the hospital authority received and approved a number of regular reports.