Following its strategic plan, Citizens Memorial Healthcare attracted more doctors, built more clinics and expanded services in 2011 to achieve growth.
CEO Donald J. Babb says CMH officials apply an extensive strategic planning process, analyzing community needs and market opportunities to update the health system’s program for growth.
“We also look at information on where people go for health care, and what type of health care,” Babb adds.
The next step is to determine whether CMH can provide those services locally in a manner that will contribute to growth. In 2011, the health system’s approach led to the openings of the Wound and Hyperbaric Center and Southside Medical Center in Bolivar, as well as a family medical center, home medical equipment sales and a rehabilitation center in Stockton.
CMH also encountered an unplanned opportunity for growth last year, acquiring Lake Stockton Healthcare Facility, which provides long-term care.
The system includes a 76-bed hospital in Bolivar and regional clinics, hospice, home care and long-term care facilities. CMH derives its revenue from inpatient and outpatient services and reimbursements from managed care plans, patients and Medicare and Medicaid.
“The biggest thing is trying to figure out what programs you can sustain through the reimbursement processes that we have to deal with,” Babb says, noting that CMH has factored into its projections the reductions in payment from Medicare and Medicaid expected in the next few years.
The Bolivar-based organization recorded revenue of $279.4 million in 2011, an increase of about 13 percent from 2010, and 30 percent higher than in 2009.
Recruiting new physicians is a crucial part of the strategic plan, Babb says.
For example, the system brought on two new surgeons last year, enabling the start of the Wound and Hyperbaric Center. CMH typically recruits six to 10 physicians a year and already has recruited four in 2012, Babb says.
CMH will celebrate 30 years of operation on Sept. 28, with Babb at the helm since the beginning. The system has grown from approximately 45,000 square feet and about six physicians at the hospital to roughly 1 million square feet and 121 physicians in all facilities, as well as 1,182 full-time employees and 512 part-time staff and per diem nurses.
CMH was organized as a public hospital district, a government entity. Because the state did not provide for ownership of allied health facilities by the hospital, CMH created a foundation in 1986 to provide those services, according to
CitizensMemorial.com.
Bank of Bolivar President Brad Gregory credits Babb with the vision to create the foundation, a platform for the organization’s growth with clinics, long-term care facilities and home medical supplies.
“He saw that opportunity, and all those things together make this a stronger organization,” says Gregory, who serves on the boards of directors of the hospital and the foundation.
Babb projects 2012 revenue of $300 million for CMH, and he says the system would reach that goal with revenue from the 2011 initiatives and from plans that will take shape in 2012. Among them, CMH is planning a 77,500-square-foot expansion of the Kerry and Synda Douglas Medical Center and Ambulatory Surgical Center on the CMH campus in Bolivar, and a hospitality house for cancer patients who are undergoing treatment.
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