CMC will host legislators' tour

Every two years, the Washington State Legislature’s House Healthcare and Wellness Committee takes a tour of facilities in rural areas, but they’ve never been to Grand Coulee.

That will change Sept. 23, when the committee led by Rep. Eileen Cody ends a tour here with a “robust” meeting at the end of the day.

Cody’s staff asked if Coulee Medical Center would be willing to participate, Chief Executive Officer Ramona Hicks told the commissioners of Hospital District 6 Monday.

“They’re bringing 20 people in a bus,” Hicks said.

In other business at the commission meeting:

• Hicks has been working on a problem the hospital shares with other employers in the area: not enough child care availability. To that end, the hospital is picking up the task it backed off several years and a couple administrations ago, that of leading an effort toward a community wellness center, possibly on land purchased for that purpose across SR-174. That property does not include, Hicks discovered earlier, the unused grain elevators there. She’ll be talking with their owners this week.

• CMC gained $100,000 in May, reported Chief Financial Officer Kelly Hughes. June gained $26,000, and the year-to-date gain she pegged at $541,231 as of June 30. That’s far less than last year’s $1.4 million at the end of June, but Hughes said that reflects the fact that CMC doesn’t currently offer orthopedic services, which also cost a lot. She’s currently studying each department to see the nuanced effects of the lack of orthopedics.

Hughes said cash flow has been climbing and CMC should end July with about $2 million in cash, just in time to start paying back over-reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid in a prior year.

• WSU is interested in expanding its relationship with CMC for the education of students in its new medical school. The students who have come have found the experience very beneficial, said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sam Hsiegh.