The Jackman Region Health Center is grappling with ways to shrink its debt and maintain its service, after operating in the red for a number of years.
The center, a division of MaineGeneral Medical Center, must develop a plan to reduce its $500,000 annual deficit by next July, according to the Kennebec Journal. The center provides hospital services, including 24-hour urgent care, doctor and ambulance services, and a nursing home, for more than 900 people in the Jackman and Moose River areas. Last year, the center’s budget was $2.2 million, while revenue totaled $1.7 million. MaineGeneral has agreed to fund $250,000 of the deficit as it has for a number of years.
Nora Boyink, senior vice president at MaineGeneral Health, told the paper reducing the center’s expenditures would pose a challenge, since its overhead and staff are already small. State license regulations changed the center’s emergency room designation, which means a reduction in private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare funding. The center could eliminate the nursing home, whose population has been declining, its 24-hour care or ambulance service, but the final plan will derive from community input, Boyink told the paper.
Go to the article from the Kennebec Journal >>