Salem Township Hospital President Kendra Taylor says the hospital is seeing increased usage well above last year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching the area.
Taylor says inpatient usage soared above the budgeted 200 inpatient days to 275.
“For October we kind of saw a lot of increase on the inpatient side with various medical conditions, but we definitely did see an increase in COVID admissions, I will say that is definite, and November the same with COVID admissions.”
Taylor says outpatient services were also impacted.
“We really are. The laboratory department just continues each month to go far and above our budgeted items and that’s really due to the COVID-19 testing volume, from our rural health clinic as well as outpatients just continuing to see a huge, huge need and increase in our testing with that.”
Taylor believes the number of COVID-19 cases has now leveled off at a higher level. One area that may be being hurt is outpatient surgeries which were down. Taylor believes some people may be putting off elective surgeries until after the pandemic.
The increased use of services resulted in a net income of $46,283 for October as the hospital continues to recover from a virtual shutdown of many services in the early days of COVID-19 in the spring.
“We’ve made up a lot of ground and are very optimistic about how we are going to close out the fiscal year come March.”
One downside has been a greater number relying on self-pay. The percent of overall patients in that category has increased from 2.8-percent to 4.4-percent. Bad Debt and Charity care were $118,801 above budget.
