The new CEO and CFO at Fulton Medical Center bring combined decades of experience in the hospital industry.
Dale Farrell, of Kansas City, former CFO at Pinnacle Health Care System, is the new chief financial officer.
New CEO Donald Buchanan told members of the Fulton Rotary Club on Wednesday he's eager to regain community trust and rebuild FMC.
"I'm sure this town has heard people say they'd do a lot of things at the FMC which they didn't do," he said. "I'm saying, as (Noble Health Corporation president/CEO) Tom Carter often says, 'Watch what we do, not what we say.'"
Noble Health took over management of Callaway County's only hospital in December, following a years-long financial and legal roller coaster. Noble Health is headquartered in Kansas City and was founded in late 2019 by Carter and business partners Drew Solomon and Don Peterson. Carter said the group has a "passion for rural health care."
"I know there have been a lot of ups and downs with this facility, but I feel like we're on the up right now," Buchanan said.
Background
Buchanan started his career as a hospital administrator in 1980 and worked primarily at rural Missouri hospitals until his retirement in 2008. He came out of retirement to work at a hospital in Montana that "needed a little straightening out" then bounced around to hospitals in a number of states including North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.
He spent three years running a hospital billing service in Oklahoma. He was also CEO of Haskel County Hospital for five years - until the hospital was purchased by Jorge Perez, the same man who attempted to buy FMC and whose business partner David Byrns faces fraud charges related to a lab billing scheme.
Buchanan got out fast after that, he said.
"When I left that hospital, I went to Marion, Kentucky, and worked for the Rural Hospital Group for 10 months," he said. "I set up a lot of clinics in that time. Then (they) asked if I'd come here."
He said he plans to stay at FMC a lot longer than 10 months.
"I love hospital stuff. I love the people," he said. "These people aren't here to make a salary but because they care about other people."
Farrell started his career as a certified public accountant doing taxes in a small town in central Minnesota.
"After 13 years, I started working for an independent physician group, and that's where I got to the crux of the medical industry," Farrell said Thursday.
Beginning in the late 1990s, he consulted for a number of physician and medical groups. He worked in strategic analysis at Truman Medical Center from 2012-14 and as CFO for Consultants in Gastroenterology from 2014-16.
Most recently, from 2016 until about a month ago, he was CFO for Pinnacle Health Care System. In January, PHCS-owned Pinnacle Regional Hospital in Boonville abruptly closed its doors. PHCS fired Farrell and its chairman around the same time, NPR station KCUR reported. Over the last year, Pinnacle Regional Hospital has been sued by vendors for nonpayment, by employees for alleged failure to pay their health insurance premiums and by the Missouri Division of Employment Security for failing to contribute to the state's unemployment insurance program.
Farrell said financial problems at the Boonville hospital started long before he got there.
"Pinnacle took over a hospital that was already struggling, maybe more so than Fulton," he said. "They thought that by putting surgery in there, it'd (get better). I'm not there anymore, so I prefer not to discuss their business. It's safe to say that hospital hadn't been taken care of for many years."
Missouri health regulators forced PRH to shutter its surgery department after an inspection uncovered issues with its sterile processing procedures, KCUR reported.
Farrell said the same won't happen in Fulton.
"The team we've put together here is great. I think, again, our frame of mind is our actions will show you what we can do," he said. "We believe in transparency. We want the community involved, we want the community buy-in. We're very optimistic that we won't go that direction."
Plans
Buchanan touted a number of plans to boost the hospital Wednesday.
"Hopefully, by next March 1, we'll have a walk-in clinic as part of the emergency room," he said.
Buchanan described what sounds basically like an urgent care: People who don't want to wait to see a doctor but don't necessarily have a health emergency, can come to the FMC ER between 5-10 p.m. Monday through Friday or 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. They'll be evaluated by the same nurses and doctors staffing the emergency room but won't face the high ER charges.
"I did this at the hospital in Marion, and it was great," Buchanan said.
He said the hospital also hopes to establish two intensive care unit beds.
"Too many times, people come into the hospital, need serious treatment and get sent somewhere else," he said.
Other goals include bringing in more specialists to work part time at FMC and contracting with local businesses to provide health screenings and drug testing.
Farrell said Noble Health and FMC are working to address the IRS debt that nearly shuttered the hospital in 2019.
"We're working with the IRS on it; there's also the issue of whose responsibility is that going to be in the long run, with the different owners that've been around," he said. "We know the IRS has to be paid. We're addressing it - that's all I can at this point."
Though Noble Health initially stated it would rebrand FMC as Noble Health Community Hospital, that's no longer a sure thing, Buchanan said, adding he thinks the hospital's name should reflect that it treats the whole county, not just Fulton.