MOSES LAKE — Hospitals have been ordered to defer all elective surgeries until at least May 18, which already has had an impact at Samaritan Hospital.

Chief Executive Officer Theresa Sullivan said the order on deferring elective surgeries was issued by Gov. Jay Inslee late last week, part of the effort to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.

Chief administrative officer Alex Town said he didn’t expect the revenue decline to affect the project to construct a new Samaritan Hospital. The planning for a new hospital has been underway for about a year.

Town reviewed forecasts and the possible impact of lower revenue at a special commission meeting Friday, and in a later interview.

“Since Monday, we’ve seen a drop of over a million dollars in gross patient revenues from the elective surgeries being canceled. We do expect March to be down a little bit over $3 million in gross patient revenue,” Town said. “For April, and I think May, we expect significant reduction in gross patient revenue.”

Samaritan probably can’t escape the impact on revenue and can’t make it up with other services.

“Unfortunately, it is likely that every hospital across the nation is going to be significantly impacted financially. There is no escaping this,” he said.

“Fortunately, Samaritan is in a very strong financial position to absorb this impact, although there are several hospitals in our state that are not in the same position and will be in a very vulnerable situation,” Town said.

Hospital officials will start working immediately on a plan to reduce expenses.

“We’ll continue to look at what our cash position is, day to day,” Town said.

Samaritan officials are also working on what comes after the restrictions are lifted.

“We do know this situation will end and there will be a significant number of people who will have care that has been delayed. Samaritan will need to be prepared to address the influx of patients at that time,” he said.

Hospital commissioners voted in April 2019 to build a new 50-bed hospital, and the project is being prepared for bid. Hospital officials have applied for a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the project. Once the loan is approved, Town said hospital officials will have flexibility to advertise for bids when conditions are more favorable.

“We’re going back and re-evaluating the feasibility study to see what the numbers look like,” Town said.

Hospitals and ambulatory surgery facilities statewide were required to postpone elective surgeries. Those were defined as procedures or surgeries that, if delayed, would not cause harm to the patient in the next three to six months, Sullivan said.

Samaritan officials originally planned to evaluate the postponements every two weeks, but Inslee’s order changed the time to May 18.