MOSES LAKE — Congressman Dan Newhouse discussed additional COVID-19 funding, paying back COVID-19 funding already received, profit and loss for health care organizations, health care staffing and other topics with chief executive officers of local hospitals during a visit to Moses Lake on Monday.

Newhouse met with Theresa Adkinson, director of the Grant County Health District; Theresa Sullivan, CEO at Samaritan Healthcare of Moses Lake; Quincy Valley Medical Center CEO Glenda Bishop; and Rosalinda Kibby, CEO of Columbia Basin Hospital in Ephrata.

Adkinson said there’s been an uptick in the number of coronavirus cases and the number of people hospitalized. Sullivan said Samaritan had 10 patients hospitalized with coronavirus over the past weekend.

“A couple of things are attributed to that,” Adkinson said.

“Many of our schools have started in-person learning,” she said. “And social gatherings. We’re dealing with a lot of COVID fatigue, and folks are wanting to get together.”

Newhouse said the U.S. Congress is considering a second coronavirus relief package. “Unfortunately that’s stuck in politics,” he said. “I think we’ll get there at some point, but I can’t tell you when that will be.”

Kibby said Columbia Basin Hospital has retained most of the money it received for coronavirus relief, due to the uncertainty surrounding repayment. “We received $4 million in (coronavirus relief) funding, and we haven’t even spent half of it,” Kibby said. Hospital officials are concerned about ambiguous regulations released to date.

Kibby said Columbia Basin Hospital officials didn’t want to spend money, then be informed the expenditures hadn’t qualified under the regulations, a point echoed by Bishop. Quincy Valley Medical Center received $3.3 million in coronavirus relief, Bishop said.

“We immediately, through legal guidance and action of the board, set that money aside and we have not touched it,” Bishop said. The pandemic has meant QVMC is making less money than anticipated and is paying more in expenses.

“It’s very concerning, especially the length of time that COVID is continuing,” Kibby said. “We’re projecting through the end of 2021 — at least — to continue the same measures that we have in place right now.”

Newhouse said he had heard that some people were putting off going to a doctor due to concerns about catching coronavirus in the hospital or clinic. He asked if that had changed.

Kibby said primary care services at Columbia Basin Hospital recovered pretty quickly, due in part to revised rules on reimbursement for telemedicine visits.

“That definitely got us going,” Kibby said. “We were able to bounce back pretty quickly.”

But CBH doesn’t offer some of the services that were most heavily affected, Kibby said.

Samaritan does offer some of those services, Sullivan said, surgery being an example. Most surgeries were deferred for six weeks to two months.

“That’s like a hole that you can’t fill,” she said. “Those are really the services that support our organization, whether it was surgery, whether it was imaging.” It’s difficult to make up those losses, she said.

Patients are returning, Sullivan said, but some people still are concerned about coming into the hospital or clinics. “Depending on what we see with COVID, or I would add influenza to that, that could have an impact again this fall. I don’t really know what to expect.”