The Board of Trustees held its regular monthly meeting.

The Hospital posted an operating loss of $154,817 for August 2019. However, the overall net loss was only $13,303 due to the addition of $141,514 of income from investments.

The total losses for this fiscal year so far are $5.97 million.

The cash balance decreased by $252,478 in the month of August, after rising for the previous six months. The cash balance at the end of August was $23.53 million, down from $25.82 million at the beginning of the fiscal year.

The net patient revenue for August 2019 rose by $361,000 over July, but so far for the fiscal year, net patient revenue has fallen by $2.6 million compared to the same period in 2018.

The Board voted to hire two coding auditing companies to audit the coding of charges from the patient charts, and to provide education to the hospital's coders and providers in order to ensure accuracy and maximum revenue recovery. The estimated cost per year is $57,875.

The Board also hired new collection vendors to assist in collecting overdue patient accounts.

The Board went into executive session and excluded the public and media for 75 minutes. Greenwood Commonwealth Editor and Publisher Tim Kalich objected to the use of the vague term "personnel matters" to justify going into executive session. He pointed out that the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that the phrase "personnel matters" is not sufficient, but that more specific information must be provided by a public body before going into executive session.

After the executive session, the board chairman reported that the Board approved some physician contracts, and hired a physician staffing firm.