OMC on positive ($) side

A report heard last night by the board at Oconee Medical Center showed the hospital, for a fifth straight month, recorded a positive bottom line. And that, according to hospital financial officer Kevin Herbert, comes even though net patient revenues were 8.7% below expectations for February. The gain over expense amounted to about $867 and a half thousand dollars. Hunter Kome, vice president for operations, said winter and its increased levels of illness is always the busiest time for a hospital. One cloud in the sky, however, is Monday, April 1 when every hospital in the country faces a two percent cut in Medicare payments—the result of the federal sequestration triggered when Congress failed to avert the “fiscal cliff.” That two percent cut is projected to have a negative impact of at least $500 thousand on the OMC bottom line over the next six months, Kome said.