PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center will collect nearly $39,700 from the 1 percent increase in its property tax revenue it adopted Tuesday, all of which it will earmark for charity care.
Uncompensated care is expected to exceed $5.2 million in 2016.
The total amount of revenue expected from the property tax — including the 1 percent increase — in 2016 is expected to be about $4 million, officials said.
OMC commissioners also unanimously approved the hospital’s 2016 budget and a 2016-18 strategic plan that calls for continued support of free clinics in Port Angeles and Sequim.
Free clinics
Direct support and donated services to Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics and the Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Center will total nearly $300,000, according to hospital CEO Eric Lewis.
The money leverages about five times that amount due to volunteer services, Lewis said.
The clinics in turn relieve pressure on OMC’s Emergency Department from people who, despite the Affordable Care Act, cannot obtain health care insurance or get Medicaid coverage, he said.
Only about a third of people who had no health care insurance have obtained coverage under the Affordable Care Act, Lewis said.
$165.9M in revenue
As for the rest of the 2016 outlay, the operating budget calls for $165.9 million total revenue.
Expenses total $161.2 million, including these programs that will start during 2016 and be completed in 2017, Lewis said:
■ Inpatient palliative (pain-relieving) care in hospice beds in the main hospital, 939 Caroline St.
■ A pain-management program to decrease reliance on opiate medications.
■ Improved infection prevention and control.
■ A new, uniform program of patients’ advance directives to doctors throughout OMC clinics.
■ A residency program in rural family care that will open next year at Swedish Medical Center and expand to OMC and the North Olympic Healthcare Network at Family Medicine of Port Angeles in 2017.
■ Daily inpatient psychiatric care. OMC will help Peninsula Behavioral Health recruit a second psychiatrist as early as Dec. 16 who will start as early as January.
■ A $4.7 million (3 percent) operating margin to fund wage and salary increases and to pay interest on loans.
Capital expenditures
Capital expenditures for 2016 total $23.8 million, topped by the $14.2 million medical office building under construction on the block bounded by Caroline, Washington, Georgiana and Race streets (see related report).
The budget also calls for $4.5 million in medical equipment and improvement to the Sequim Medical Campus.
_______
Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
