By CHERYL SCHWEIZER

Staff Writer

QUINCY — Even with the challenges presented by the COVID-19 outbreak, two medical centers have reduced the debt they owe to Grant County.

Grant County Treasurer Darryl Pheasant said that as of Sept. 30, Quincy Valley Medical Center and McKay Healthcare and Rehabilitation in Soap Lake have made substantial progress in paying off their debt.

Both hospital districts had to borrow money from Grant County, a process that uses what are called interest-bearing warrants. Interest-bearing warrants are issued by junior taxing districts when they don’t have enough cash on hand to meet their obligations. The district borrows money from the county to pay its bills, then pays the money back with interest.

The Quincy hospital owed the county $3.9 million as of September 2019, Pheasant said, and cut that to $2.3 million at the end of September 2020.

McKay Healthcare owed $670,000 as of September 2019, and it had cut the debt to $310,000 by the end of September 2020.

Quincy hospital administrator Glenda Bishop said she expects QVMC to finish 2020 with about $3 million in outstanding warrants, due to a required payment to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But that’s still progress — the debt at the end of 2019 was $3.5 million.

Quincy hospital district voters approved a one-year, $875,000 levy in 2019 that helped the district’s finances. A renewal of the levy was rejected in 2019, but voters approved another year in 2020. That money will be collected in 2021.

“We are absolutely very grateful to our community,” Bishop said.

Hospital officials have been trying to pay down the debt for a number of years and have been adapting services and working to reduce costs, Bishop said. The cost-cutting efforts are still continuing.

State officials ordered the suspension of some services at hospitals statewide from mid-March through mid-May, but Bishop said QVMC didn’t offer some of those services. She cited elective surgeries as an example. “You can’t lose what you don’t have,” she said.

Fewer patients used QVMC’s preventive care services, and fewer people came to the emergency room, she said. “Volume was way down because people were staying home,” Bishop said.

The use of services like physical therapy decreased. The hospital did receive a paycheck protection loan for about $749,000. That helped the hospital meet payroll, she said, and the hospital has met the requirements to have that loan forgiven.

Some of the new services are starting to grow, Bishop said. She cited treatments for people suffering from side effects of chronic diseases, called wound care. Wound care includes ailments like sores that are a side effect of diabetes.

“It’s flourishing because of the need in our community,” she said.

Bishop commended the QVMC physicians, other medical professionals and staff for their efforts to help cut the debt. “It really has been a team effort,” she said.

McKay Healthcare administrators did not respond to attempts to contact them.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].