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*The board heard a positive financial report from chief financial officer Kirk Johnson. PAHCS recorded profit from operations for the second straight month in January. Their year-to-date bottom line is $226,787 in the black, which is nearly $170,000 better than budgeted and $570,000 better than last year at the same time. Johnson explained that $350,000 of this change from last year was due to the switch to being a critical-access hospital and thus receiving cost-based reimbursement from Medicare and $220,000 to better operations.

PAHCS still faces a tight cash situation, since it sent its first billings to Medicare since the switch to critical-access status in February. PAHCS held nearly $1 million in claims to Medicare (since the switch to cricial access took effect at the start of December) until the new billing system was in place. Johnson said PAHCS expects to receive back payments from Medicare until the end of March, by which time the cast situation should improve.

*The board reviewed the schedule to visit the governing boards of the 12 entities that comprise the hospital district (the time indicates either the meeting start time or the time PAHCS is on the agenda: city of Richmond, Wednesday, March 3, 6:30 p.m.; city of St. Martin, Monday, March 8, 7 p.m.; Union Grove Township, Tuesday, March 9, 8:15 p.m.; Roseville Township, Tuesday, March 9, 8:30 p.m.; Zion Township, Tuesday, March 9, 8:30 p.m.; Paynesville Township, Tuesday, March 9, 9 p.m.; city of Lake Henry, Monday, March 22, 7 p.m.; city of Paynesville, Wednesday, March 24, 6 p.m.; city of Regal, Monday, April 5, 8 p.m.; city of Eden Valley, Wednesday, April 7, 7 p.m.; city of Roscoe, Monday, April 12, 7 p.m., Eden Lake Township, Tuesday, April 13, 7:30 p.m.

*The board approved the appointment of Scott Swenson, M.D. (radio-logy) to the consulting medical staff and approved the following provisional appointments to the consulting medical staff: Pamela Brett, D.O.; Umesh Chitaley, M.D. (oncology); Diane Duckworth, M.D. (obstetrics-gynecology); Nicholas Reuter, M.D. (oncology).