The 2022 horizon includes many exciting things happening at Rainy Lake Medical Center. Our RLMC heroes in every department are working incredibly hard to ensure they are doing everything in their power to care for the communities we serve.
Our teams’ perseverance, dedication, and ability to adapt, continue to give RLMC the best chance to manage this ongoing crisis. We are especially impressed by the collaboration and teamwork, because it shows how much we are capable of accomplishing together.
There are many new and exciting things in store for our facility in 2022. From the opening of our new retail pharmacy, to welcoming new providers and services, the upcoming year has a bright outlook.
While we continue to navigate through the ongoing pandemic, RLMC remains focused on our mission to provide accessible, high-quality healthcare to our communities. This is achieved through a not-for-profit designation. RLMC is among the hundreds of not-for-profit hospitals nationwide. Like others, we have a long history of providing health care for all, including those who are not able to pay.
Like any other financially viable organization, a not-for-profit hospital must take in more than it pays out in salaries, equipment, supplies, pharmaceuticals, and operations. RLMC invests the excess of revenue over expenses back into the facility to provide health care services to the communities we serve. These investments include new services, support of services that lose money, new access points, replacement equipment, and new technology.
Through these investments, employment, and the purchase of goods and services, hospitals provide tremendous economic impact in their communities.
We are committed to serving as a pillar in the Borderland community. Because we are a not-for-profit organization, providing community benefit is required for RLMC and other hospitals to be a tax-exempt charitable organization. We achieve this through a partnership with Rainy River Community College, our nurse help line, donations to post proms, wellness initiatives and more. In total, what RLMC contributes to community benefit activities and support continues to come in just under $100,000 annually.
Uncompensated care is also factored into our not-for-profit status. Uncompensated care includes both charity/community care for patients for whom there is no expectation of payment (based on established criteria), and bad debts resulting from patients who could not or did not pay their share of the hospital bill. RLMC’s cost of charity care has averaged $75,000 the last two years, and the cost of bad debts has ranged from $457,000 to $620,000 to $370,000 over the past three years.
In addition, RLMC’s annual expense for Provider Taxes (Medicaid surcharge and MinnesotaCare tax) was $367,000 in 2020 and $397,000 in 2019.
I am very proud of all that RLMC has accomplished in the more than three years I’ve served as CEO of the facility. Our incredible staff remains dedicated to providing excellent care to patients and their families, oftentimes going above and beyond the call of duty. Despite these challenging times, we know that RLMC will only emerge stronger because we continue to invest in our future. Thank you for all of your support.