The Worth County Convalescent Center, along with Danny Marsh, is continuing to work on the financial reports so that they can get a better picture of the financial shape of the facility. Also, work on the new boiler system has been done and the new system is nearly operational, the WCCC board learned at their regular meeting Wednesday night.
Marsh recommended some tightening of controls for the facility. For instance, someone else needed to sign off on bank reconciliation statements as well as journal entries for the facility. Tighter internal controls as well as tighter recordkeeping for the physical and occupational therapist were recommended. Another suggestion that was made was for later meetings so that staff and administration would have more time to put together records from last month. Currently, the way that things are set up now, the board is looking at the financial picture from two months ago. With a later meeting time, it was hoped that the board would be able to look at last month's finances as well in order to have a more accurate picture of the financial state of the facility.
The board appointed member Kathy Miller to sign off on the reconciliation and journal statements with Anthony Steinhauser as backup if for some reason she was unable to do so during a particular month.
Unpaid accounts were another issue that were brought up. In previous years, the facility did not have a policy on collecting unpaid bills, meaning that there were tens of thousands of dollars owed the facility that never got paid. Now, the facility seeks to collect such unpaid balances. Some are paying what they can afford and others are waiting to hear back from their insurance company. Some debts have been successfully collected after the new policy was implemented. Regarding finances, the Nursing Home evaluates each case individually and helps residents to qualify for Medicaid if they do not have it. A lot of different criteria are used to determine qualifications for Medicaid.
Another area in need of improvement was recordkeeping for credit card purchases. Bills that are paid for by the credit card are listed by the card issuer. However, that does not specify what the charges are for.
The facility had their annual state inspection and there were only two deficiencies noted by the state as opposed to 24 last year.
Administrator Karen Fletchall reported that there was flooring work to do in order to improve the appearance of the facility.
The facility is seeking to take residents on outings as long as possible until the winter weather kicks in. Residents went to the Worth Treatin' event for Halloween and a lot of people stopped by for Halloween on October 31st. The Learning Academy students came by and they referred to the place as "our nursing home." The facility is also planning a shopping experience for its residents as well as a Thanksgiving Day dinner.
Ideas were floated around for improving the therapy area so that the experience for patients would be improved. There were also plans to improve the nurses' area.
Gas usage was up 7.8% from last year while water usage was also up. However, electricity usage by the facility was down from last year.
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