HOW HE SEES IT Forum not neglecting Valley residents

By DOUGLAS X. WOMER
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
Last Sunday's column by two Youngstown State University professors might persuade readers that Forum Health has been negligent in its commitment to the people of this Valley and its less fortunate residents.
They are wrong; allow me to set the record straight.
According to the professors' account, Forum provided $12 million in charity care in 2004, an amount the authors suggest does not represent Forum's proper "share" of care for low-income residents in the communities it serves.
According to 2004 audited financial statements, Forum Health provided $43 million in uncompensated care that year. This contribution grew to $75 million in 2005. Since 1999, Forum Health has provided nearly $260 million of uncompensated care to the citizens of the Valley. Those are the facts.
To be fair, the classification of expenses and costs in health care are not always easy to discern, so the professors may have misread the reports.
But it would have prevented a great deal of confusion if the professors had bothered to contact Forum first to check their facts. Indeed, as academics and as authors, they have a responsibility to do so.
Particularly disturbing was the professors' contention that Forum has engaged in a practice of "dumping" its less fortunate patients on other hospitals. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm an accountant and deal primarily in numbers. But the numbers alone don't tell the whole story. Forum's significant financial contributions to community care also include the costs of providing health education, outreach to the poor, training doctors and nurses and countless other community health services that simply don't show up as line items in an annual report.
There is no doubt that Forum Health has and continues to meet its community care obligations. In fact, one of the reasons that Forum is struggling with such severe financial problems is because of the growing volume of charity care we provide -- the reality of operating hospitals in a shrinking and economically-depressed area.
Superior care
The people of Forum Health are proud of the superior care Forum delivers and the efforts they put forth each day on behalf of this community. Therefore, I hope readers understand our frustration when the facts are reported incorrectly in the newspaper.
How is the community's interest served by lobbing accusations without taking responsibility for first getting the facts right? After reading their column several times, I really must begin to question the professors' motives.
As written, the article insults our physicians, nurses, technicians, clerical and support workers who take seriously their commitment to community health care. I truly hope it was in error, rather than a deliberate effort to disparage Forum's efforts or diminish the critically important role our system plays as a major component of the health care "safety net" of this community.
Forum does not have the financial resources of Humility of Mary, which is part of the largest health system in Ohio and the seventh largest not-for-profit health system in the entire country.
However, Forum is disproportionately burdened by a high labor cost structure and is equally affected by the financial pressures of declining reimbursements and the growing charity caseload.
In my role as chief financial officer, I have primary responsibility for managing the system's finances and putting in place the fiscal controls that are necessary to reverse Forum's losses.
The reality is that Forum Health is limited in its resources and ability to continue to provide uncompensated care at any level, if it does not quickly and aggressively address its financial problems. And that task will be all the more difficult in an atmosphere that puts politics and personal interests above what is really in the best interest of this community.
X Douglas X. Womer, CPA, MBA, is chief financial officer of Forum Health.