Tulare Regional Medical Center is inching closer to reopening, but there’s no concrete date yet, the hospital’s board was told Wednesday.
The hospital has, however, received over 500 applications for employment, and a job fair is in the process of being scheduled, interim CEO Larry Blitz told the board.
Additionally, the hospital’s management consultants now have access to records and to the hospital itself — although the hospital’s keys were handed off the night before Thanksgiving, they entered the hospital on 7am Monday.
Access to Records
“We’re to the point where we have the information and can create the budget, and now what we have to do is sell that to people who want to invest, or loan money, to the district,” Blitz told the board.
“In order for the board to be able to tell you when the hospital’s going to be opening, we’re going to be sitting down in the next week with potential funders showing them what our financial projections are,” he said.
Blitz said his staff at HFS/Wipfli Consultants are preparing three budgets for the hospital: a skeleton crew budget to keep its building and physical plant in order, a budget to reopen, and a budget to ramp-up to full capacity.
Additionally, the re-opening of the hospital would include the clinics — and the clinics couldn’t reopen before the hospital, according to the California Department of Public Health, he said.
Dan Heckathorne, the hospital’s interim CFO, said that officials won’t have access to the hospital’s bank balances until Thursday morning.
“We can’t see our bank account yet,” he said.
The hospital also needs to evaluate its outstanding accounts receivable.
“There’s a very large number out there – we’re not sure how much of that is collectable,” Blitz said.
The hospital’s previous firm handling its accounts receivable and “revenue cycle,” Navigant Cymetrix, claims to be owed upward of $1.7m by the district.
View noteAccording to Navigant’s records, the hospital stopped paying the company in August of 2016, just one month after officials with HCCA extended out a line of credit to the Southern Inyo Healthcare District.
The current board released them from the “automatic stay” in bankruptcy proceedings, allowing them to stop providing accounts receivable services and enter an administrative claim for the amount owed.
Evolutions Oversight Board
Additionally, hospital board members appointed citizens to a committee that would provide financial oversight to the newly-revived Evolutions.
The committee members appointed were:
- Edward Henry
- Derek Jackson
- Alberto Aguilar
- Courtney Waters
- Phil Smith
The committee will report on the operations of Evo Management Company to the members of the hospital board.
The hospital board’s next two meetings will be on on December 6 and 20, both at 6:30pm.