EPHRATA - Grant County officials say they are becoming impatient with Quincy Valley Medical Center's $4 million debt, and their foot-dragging approach to reduce it.

"Grant County is quite concerned of the lack of desire of the board to take reasonable actions to start a plan to pay down the near $4 million dollars of registered warrant that have accrued," Grant County Treasurer Darryl Pheasant told QVMC CEO Mehdi Merred in an e-mail this week.

Pheasant stated he was concerned that the QVMC board of directors has not stated whether they will seek a levy on the November ballot to ask taxpayers to pay the debt. The deadline for that proposal is Aug. 5, according to the county's election office.

"It takes time and many volunteers to sell this proposal to the taxpayers and time is getting very short for the general election," Pheasant stated.

Merred responded that "unless (Pheasant) wants to start micromanaging and take responsibility for any of the District's failure, I would suggest you let us meet the County Commissioners expectations without interference."

When asked about the levy deadline, Merred said that the board has not made the decision about whether to put a levy on the November ballot, but will do so at their next meeting, July 28, or at a special meeting at a later date.

Hospital

expansion

During this week's regularly scheduled county commission meeting, commissioners signed a check for $5,000 to pay for a feasibility study ordered in 2012 and recently completed to look into expanding QVMC.

"I considered turning that money over to (county treasurer) Darryl (Pheasant) and saying use this to pay down some of that debt," county commissioner Richard Stevens said.

Merred said the hospital is not looking to expand, but was in 2012 when its financial situation was different.

The report states that the hospital has a higher than normal portion of Medicare patients, about 40 percent of their total population served. It states that 90 percent of Quincy residents seek inpatient care elsewhere and 80 percent receive surgery at other health care facilities, but that expanding the facility could get more patients, and more money, into the hospital.

Among the benefits to expanding include happier workers and patients, lower costs and more opportunities to increase profitability, according to the report's author Stroudwater Associates.

QVMC Board of Directors member Randy Zolman, who is seeking a county commissioner seat, said that the hospital "needs to get their house in order" before making plans to expand their facilities.

He said the main reason the hospital has such a large debt is hospital patrons not paying their bills, including concertgoers at the Gorge Amphitheater. He said that, on average, the hospital writes off between $75,000 and $145,000 every month in debt. He said that most of that debt comes from people who come into the emergency room, do not have health insurance and do not pay their bill, but by federal law, the hospital cannot refuse service at its emergency room to anyone, he said.

Stevens said that he thinks that it is time the hospital board makes some "tough financial decisions," like possibly cutting executive pay to reduce the debt.

County commissioner Cindy Carter, whose district includes QVMC, said that the hospital has financial problems that they need to get resolved before they look at expanding. She said that Pheasant requested more financial information from QVMC and was told it would take six weeks to give the county treasurer those details.