Medina hospital moves to end management, billing contracts with outside organizations
MEDINA – Orleans Community Health/Medina Memorial Hospital announced today that it will file a 90-day notice to end its management contract with Health Tech Management Services and also the company that has been handling billing.
Health Tech, a Tennessee-based healthcare management company, has been providing administrative and consulting services to Orleans Community Health since June 2013 at $20,000 a month. OCH also contracted with Gaffey Healthcare, an affiliated Health Tech company, since April 2014.
Orleans Community Health also signed an affiliation agreement with Catholic Health in June 2014 to help strengthen healthcare services in Orleans County and provide area patients with greater access to other specialty and support services.
“They gave us all kinds of support but we’re getting that with Catholic Health,” said Dawn Meland, vice president of the OCH board of directors. “We don’t need the redundancy.”
The Health Tech contract included the hospital’s former president and CEO, Dolores Horvath, who resigned earlier this month citing personal family obligations. With the termination of the contracts with Health Tech Management Services and Gaffey Healthcare, Orleans Community Health is currently reviewing proposals from new billing companies.
With Horvath’s departure, the Orleans Community Health Board of Directors felt it was a good opportunity to move the organization in a new strategic direction by naming Wendy Jacobson as Medina Memorial’s Chief Operating Officer/Chief Nursing Officer, Interim President and CEO, according to a statement released by the organization.
Meland said Health Tech provided a transition for the hospital after the departure of Jim Sinner, the former president and CEO, in June 2013.
With local support from Catholic Health, which includes physician recruitment and other service opportunities, Orleans Community Health is committed to the success and sustainability of Medina Memorial Hospital and to providing high quality healthcare to the residents of Orleans County, according to the OCH statement.
