Save Lakewood Hospital - Your Life Depends on It

[Marguerite Harkness]

I can't say how much would be an appropriate figure, because I think Clinic's overhead expenses are exorbitant and we should not be stuck with their excesses. (Executive Team? Regional Administration? Consulting and Legal? Really?) However - if their Admin expense runs 2.8% of their net patient revenue, then proportionally they should charge us no more than 2.8% of OUR net patient revenue--say, about $3 million. Not 20% ($24 million) of our net patient revenue. Until they can prove otherwise, it looks to me like they are charging us for the executives/consultants/legal who are working to shut Lakewood down and build up Avon - and THAT is egregious! I can understand that some part of the $24 million (about 17% or $4 million) MIGHT be legitimate, if it really is for services, anesthesiologists, physicians, neurologists, etc., that have to be called in to Lakewood because such a specialist is not available; and if they will specifically identify what they are charging us for. With $65 million payroll, I think $4 million of additional specific services could possibly be legitimate. As you can see, they don't give us any detail that would support what they are charging us - so EVERYTHING they charge us is, therefore, suspicious and needs careful scrutiny.
At $2 million a month, I am pretty sure we could figure a way to hire our own high-paid execs to manage our own hospital profitably. That would be a pretty hefty budget to work with, don't you think?