Healthy county leads to bleak outlook for Pardee

Good news for the public: Henderson County emerged from December with fewer serious cases of the flu.

But that translates into bad news for the public hospital, when you are talking money. Fewer patients visited Pardee Hospital in December, which weakened its financial outlook.

Leaders of the county-owned hospital say a weak flu season is behind the drop in patient visits. Pardee had 144 fewer patient admissions and 685 fewer outpatient visits than in December 2006.

"We haven't seen the flu like in the past. It's a huge driver, particularly in January and December," Pardee CEO Kris Hoce told the hospital board of directors Wednesday.

Expenses also rose as employees sought health care before the new year, when they would have to pay new insurance deductibles. Employee benefits cost $238,000 more than the budget called for in December.

Pardee lost $1.18 million in December, which dragged it $397,000 into the red for the year so far.

"The month of December was very, very difficult," said J.W. Davis, treasurer of the board of directors.

But the performance is better than originally planned. Pardee's budget called for it to be $820,000 in the red by the end of December.

Detox unit

Pardee's eight-bed medical detox unit remains a concern, despite financial help from the region's mental health management agency.

Pardee planned to shut down the unit in December, but changed course when Western Highlands offered $350,000 to help keep the unit open.

The fate of the unit hangs in the balance every three months. Pardee accepted the money in quarterly installments so it could back out if the unit became too much of a financial drain. The unit has an average of about four patients a day.

"With the Western Highlands contribution, we're at about break even," Hoce said. But that doesn't include overhead costs, he said. With the Western Highlands grant, Pardee would still be subsidizing the unit by more than $500,000 annually.

"It is certainly a need for the community, you can tell that by the volume, but we don't want to get into the position where we're obviously creating a subsidy," Hoce said.