Study ranks hospitals for charitable care
Kalispell Regional Medical Center is roughly in the middle of 11 major Montana hospitals in balancing tax breaks against charitable care in 2007.
That picture comes from the Montana Attorney General's Office's second annual study - released last month - of the state's 11 biggest hospitals. North Valley Hospital was not part of the study.
The annual studies are to track how much the hospitals give back to their communities in return for their tax-exempt status.
Kalispell Regional's standing echoes how it placed in last year's report, which addressed 2006.
Here are highlights from the latest report for 2007:
- Kalispell Regional placed fifth in total profit - after payrolls and other expenses are deducted - at $11.341 million, which included donations and returns on investments.
Kalispell Regional officials said when the hospital's budget is meshed with the entire Northwest Healthcare budget, that profit would shrink to slightly more than $6 million because of net losses in operating Brendan House and psychiatric care.
Northwest Healthcare is the parent company of Kalispell Regional.
- Kalispell Regional's total tax exemptions were $4.993 million, the seventh highest among the 11.
- The state study calculated that $7.35 million in unpaid benefits went to Kalispell Regional's patients - the seventh highest in the state and $310,000 behind sixth place.
- When community benefits are crunched with tax exemptions, Kalispell Regional gives $1.48 in free care for each $1 in exemptions - the ninth-best ratio among the 11 largest hospitals.
Kalispell Regional officials contended that number is low because the state study did not include the local hospital's unreimbursed psychiatric care and efforts with Brendan House, as well as some Northwest Healthcare functions.
They speculated factoring those unreimbursed services could put Kalispell Regional's ratio at $2.50 in unreimbursed care per $1 in tax exemptions. Under that presumption, Kalispell Regional would have placed fifth.
- From 2006 to 2007, Kalispell Regional increased a patient's income level to be eligible for discounts on hospital bills.
In both years, Kalispell Regional wrote off 100 percent of the bills to families making 125 percent or less of the federal poverty level - a sliding figure that is adjusted for family sizes. Two hospitals have lower percentages for full write-offs.
Meanwhile, Kalispell Regional increased its upper limit for a family to be eligible for a discount on its bill from 200 percent to 250 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. Kalispell Regional also will discount bills on some catastrophic cases.
Six hospitals offer discounts for up to 300 to 400 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.
- Nineteen percent of Flathead County's residents had no health insurance in 2005 - the fourth-highest percentage among the counties served by the 11 largest hospitals.
About 12.5 percent of Flathead County's population was below the federal poverty guideline levels in 2005 - the ninth lowest level among counties with the biggest hospitals.
- Kalispell Regional turned 9,180 accounts over to collection agencies, the seventh-highest number among the 11 hospitals. The average debt was $956 -'seventh-highest average in unpaid bills.
Kalispell Regional's unpaid bills included 600 parties in bankruptcy, the second-highest number in the state, and significantly outdistanced the third-highest number of 484 from the Billings Clinic. Bozeman Deaconess had the highest number of bankrupt patients with unpaid bills at 823.
However, Kalispell Regional's bankrupt patients averaged $241 in their unpaid bills, by far the lowest average among the 11 hospitals.
- Kalispell Regional's hospital foundation collected $1.087 million in 2007 and spent $1.019 million on projects -'spending 89.9 percent of that year's income, which was the second-highest percentage in the state.
The Kalispell foundation's income was the seventh highest of the biggest 11, and its spending ranked eighth.