I have friends on both sides of the aisle about the new children’s hospital in El Paso.
One says that it will cost the taxpayers a fortune and that no children’s hospital makes a profit.
Another says that our hospital is a separate entity from the county hospital and that it is self sustaining financially.
It has been open for about 18 months now so I thought I would look into the finances.
A quick visit to their web site elpasochildrens.org gave me absolutely no financial information about the organization.
Failing there, I moved over to the county hospital website www.umcelpaso.org and found some information.
Not separate
The children’s hospital building is part of the county hospital district. In fact the financial documents describe it as the “El Paso Children and Women’s Tower”. The children’s hospital leases it’s facilities from the county hospital. It’s financial situation directly affects our taxes. It does have a separate CEO and board of directors. The board is “self perpetuating” which I think means that the board appoints new members, not the county commissioners.
The following information was taken from the county hospital financials:
El Paso Children’s, a Texas not-for-profit corporation, is a separate entity apart from the Hospital District.
The Hospital District provides an allowance for uncollectible accounts based upon a review of outstanding receivables, current economic conditions and cash flows of El Paso Children’s. (In other words the county hospital takes more or less money from the children’s hospital depending on how things are going).
The county hospital provides about $28.4 million of services to the children’s hospital each year. We don’t know if this is the true cost. Is the county hospital subsidizing the children’s hospital? Could it be the other way around?
Since the county hospital owns the children’s hospital building the county hospital increased their depreciation expense $9.9 million in 2012.
The Hospital District has entered into an affiliation agreement with an area hospital to improve the level of health care provided to the County indigent population by participating in one of the state’s Medicaid supplemental payment programs for privately owned safety-net hospitals. The Hospital District provides funding for the nonfederal share of the Medicaid Supplemental Payment Program (“Private” UPL Program). This amount approximated $43.7 million in 2012 and $35.8 million in 2011. It would appear that our county hospital is paying another local hospital that is privately owned to provide care to indigent patients.
Losing money
The county hospital had an operating loss of $17.8 million dollars in 2012. Gross charges attributable to charity were 24%.
I’ve seen some financial engineering before but the people over at the county hospital seem to be specializing in it.
The jungle drums are beating out messages about a rift between the county hospital and Texas Tech as well as talk about dumping cancer patients out on the street and referring them to privately owned companies.
I plan to look into those issues.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Rift? Dumping cancer cancer patients? Financial “engineering” or shall we say “juggling” or “obfuscating”? Operating losses? Who’s making money and who’s losing it? Go figure! Didn’t Texas Tech / UMC just get it’s independence after initially telling us the change from Thomason to Texas Tech it would mean more money? So much for the future of the much lauded Medical Center of the Americas! So much for the best of medical care for children, women, cancer patients, and the rest of El Paso. Doctors are certainly making a killing…what about that one that made over a million for working “overtime” setting up the med school? De La Rosa’s not exactly making peanuts.What about recruting more doctors and teachers for the med school and the Children’s Hospital via every means possible including the QoL Ballpark for their wives and kids? Infighting, backbiting, finagling, pointing fingers, independent self appointed boards, What’s that Hippocratic Oath quote about “first, do no harm? Who would want to come to this mess?
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This is a whole other area ripe for investigation. The lady running against Judge Escobar shared her concern with me and said that she was on the UMC board and asked to leave because she was asking such questions. She said that only 4 floors of the Children’s hospital were being used for clinical services and the rest were occupied by other entities. Wasn’t this a bond issue?
Then there is the $120MM for 5 new clinics. She said that she visited the current care centers that the clinics are supposed to replace and found them to be underutilized. So why the new clinics?
Someone has an agenda here. I asked a doctor new in town about this and he told me it is not unusual for there to be tension between the private-practice medical community and an academic medical center, and that is what is new in the local healthcare equation, the Texas Tech-UMC relationship. It looks like Texas Tech wants to create its own “feeder system” into UMC and Children’s from the primary care clinics and use County money to do so.
Really, it looks like a whole new medical colossus is arising there and I am not against it but, like the stadium, I would sure like to know its long term financial impact on us and our taxes. Also, where the money is going. I can’t imagine this much cash sloshing around without one of the Usual Suspects tapping the flow along the way:)
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I heard the person running against Escobar was not the brightest bulb on the UMC board. Its easy to claim “I asked the hard questions” – its another to see the video (if there is one) and/or the minutes to back up what she’s claiming. Funny she didn’t go public with her concerns at the time she made them. Guess it wasn’t important then.
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Some good people have come and gone at UMC due to the infighting and highly political culture.
The media is reporting this week that there is an extreme shortage of doctors in El Paso and that the ratio of patients/doctors is going up. They are probably correct given the recent growth in population.
When we push for more growth and development, little thought is given to the infrastructure and basic services required to support the larger population. Except of course AAA ballparks, which everyone knows are a necessity. Imagine how much medical care could be provided with the money that is being spent on the baseball park.
Meanwhile, Electrolux and Precision Cameras are closing some El Paso operations and eliminating a combined total of more than 100 jobs.
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I tried to tell everyone about the sham the childrens hospital was/is. It was proof that even when you put things to the voters, they aren’t educated enough on the issue to vote for their best interests. The childrens hospital will haunt El Paso for decades.
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The Dollars (Tax or otherwise) Stay in El Paso at Non Profits vs the “For Profit Healthcare systems”..
so follows…
Children treated at our Local Children’s hospitals stay in El Paso…that is GOOD!
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