Understanding BMHD’s Recent Strategic Restructuring  

Understanding BMHD’s Recent Strategic Restructuring  

This is a follow-up to our press release from Tuesday. We received some questions about the recent organizational changes at BMHD, and want to take this opportunity to both thank and educate our community. The restructuring and reorganization was done for BMHD’s financial stability. Operating a healthcare facility is complex, especially in a remote and frontier area like ours.

In reviewing actual financial data shown below from our last fiscal year, we determined that change is imperative to sustain services for our community. Please note that Blue Mountain Hospital District had a $2.05 million dollar loss last year, including the revenue received as part of our tax district support. In fact, we have experienced a similar net operating loss for the last several years at BMHD. Our greatest losses stem from operating our Blue Mountain Care Center, our rural nursing home with almost a million-dollar loss, the Strawberry Wilderness Community Care Center with $1.2 million dollar loss last fiscal year, as well as trying to support our community with labor and delivery services at the hospital. 

We recognize how essential healthcare services are for our community and we are committed to improvement to ensure financial health and sustainability for our health district. In comparing our performance to industry standards, we’ve identified ways to operate more efficiently and reduce costs. 70% of our costs are “Personnel costs” (see above) and that means we have had to make extremely difficult decisions which affect good people. Personnel costs at the Care Center and the Clinic were higher than revenues collected from providing services to our patients, demonstrating how unsustainable our current model was. We know that behind every number in this report are real people, our staff, patients, families, and neighbors. The decision to restructure positions at BMHD was not taken lightly and was done with the utmost compassion for our affected colleagues. 

In addition to our already challenging financial position, we are concerned about potential Medicaid cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) legislation. The OBBB impacts Medicaid recipients and Medicaid eligibility in many different ways. Many of our patients are recipients of Medicaid as their insurer for healthcare services. In fact, 24% of our patients at BMHD are Medicaid recipients and 95% of our residents at the Blue Mountain Care Center rely on Medicaid. 

We will need to find additional and innovative ways to deliver the same exceptional level of care at a lower cost. We are confident that these and other changes will allow us to move the organization forward during these challenging times, in which we face anticipated Medicaid cuts due to the OBBB, while already experiencing financial losses over several fiscal years. We feel an immense sense of responsibility for our patients and families, our team members, and community and certainly appreciate the community support we have received as we navigate these difficult times. 

Misty Robertson 

Chief Executive Officer 

Blue Mountain Hospital District