2015 Economic Impact Awards 30+ Years in Operation Finalist: CoxHealth

For CoxHealth, it’s an exciting time to be in the health care industry.

With completion of the $130 million Dee Ann White Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Jared Neuroscience Center at Cox Medical Center South, the health care system is wrapping up planned improvements. Last year, those included a 60,000-square foot expansion at Cox Medical Center Branson and renovations to the Cox Monett Hospital’s emergency room. With a larger footprint and additional patients comes the need for more skilled workers.

“We need more people, not only to fill positions but also we’re creating new positions to accommodate growth in the organization,” says Chief Financial Officer Jake McWay, noting the company added approximately 100 full-time openings in the past month to fields from nursing to information technology.

Growth also can be seen on the books. CoxHealth posted net revenue of $1.25 billion in fiscal 2014, up 3 percent from the previous year.

“Our revenue growth rate is slower, but what we’re doing financially means the cost of care is also growing at a much slower pace,” McWay says, adding CoxHealth’s current focus is to lower both patient and hospital expenses through better management of care.

McWay points to Cox Medical Center’s 0.92 percent ratio of Medicare hospital spending per beneficiary, below the state average of 0.96 percent and national average of 0.98 percent, as a sign the health care system is on the right track.

“That’s one area where we are seeing results, not just us, but the entire health care industry has made a lot of progress,” McWay says. “We think it’s because we have better readmission rates, and we’re doing a more aggressive job of making sure people are being treated in the right settings.”

Improving the quality of care means expanding the scope of services with a recent focus on pediatrics. In the past year, CoxHealth expanded pediatric subspecialties through a partnership with St. Louis Children’s Hospital and now provides monthly outpatient surgery in collaboration with the University of Missouri Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeons. McWay says CoxHealth recently developed another partnership with the St. Louis-based Washington University.

“Some of their highly-regarded specialists are seeing patients in our facilities, providing people with access they might not have had locally before and would have had to travel to get,” he says.

In fiscal 2013, CoxHealth’s impact, including outreach services and in-kind donations, was estimated at $159 million, with $56 million coming from free care. Although technically a financial loss, McWay says it comes with the territory.

“We see that as a part of who we are, and it’s part of what we have to do,” he adds.

The other part the mission, he says, is having a strong local presence and delivering quality care at the best possible value. Whether that means participating in a bundled payment project through the Affordable Care Act or working to lower readmission rates, McWay says it all contributes to making the Springfield area more appealing to employers.

“That means more resources for those people to invest in other ways,” he says. “If it’s a competitive advantage for this region to have lower-cost health care, that’s a good thing for us and them.”