The Gila Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees, made up of Grant County residents appointed by the Grant County Commission, will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, March 13, 2025, to hold a discussion in closed session on its current hospital management contract. It is a decision on whether to renew the contract, which was due to expire soon. What will the decision be when they come out at the end of the executive session?

The Beat has received information that causes me, the editor, to question what direction the hospital and its board plan to go.

Will they stay with their current management company Health Tech, choose another management company or perhaps decide the hospital can manage itself? That came from one source. 

From another source, the Beat spoke to the former imaging department director, who was hired by Health Tech, in 2021. He admits to being a disgruntled ex-employee. But he said  several things that lead down paths that make little sense.

On Feb. 4, the former director received a raise. On Feb. 26, he was fired without cause.

This employee received the raise after creating $12 million MORE in billable outpatient care at the halfway point of fiscal year 2025 than in the prior fiscal year.

Then a few weeks later, he is terminated without cause.

This editor sees a disconnect.

The Beat also remembers when the hospital was down to a mere 9 days of cash on hand [A day of cash on hand is about how much is needed for daily expenses at a hospital]. The then-Governing Board, the Grant County Commission, made the decision to hire Health Tech to manage the hospital. Gila Regional at that time was its own manager, after having gotten rid of its previous hospital management company some years before.

Now, several years after the Governing Board chose Health Tech to save the hospital, deemed by the county, which owns the facility, necessary for the residents of Grant County and its surrounding region, the now Board of Trustees, is considering whether to keep the current management company? Or is this editor reading too much into the special meeting?

With the help of Health Tech, with interim and permanent administrators coming and going, many changes having been made in staffing, and efficiencies taken, GRMC now has about 130 to 140 days of cash on hand as compared to its nine days when it was near closure. The hospital has had the ability to make capital expenditures to improve inpatient and outpatient outcomes, using grants and its own revenue. The board has hired a contractor to determine the need and/or feasibility of building a new hospital facility with more technological capabilities than can be retrofitted into an older building.

But to come back to the question of the former imaging director. Why was he fired without cause after increasing by $12 million the  billable revenue for the hospital, and why is there now a hospital search for a new imaging director at a salary and bonus about $40,000 more than what the successful director was making?

He told the Beat that he could have been even more successful as director if he could have remained in charge of scheduling for the department. While he did the scheduling he filled almost all of the everyday appointments in his department. Scheduling was taken away from him, where it had been inside the hospital, and moved back to an auxiliary building outside the facility. New staff was brought in to bring perhaps  more diversity to the hospital?

The Beat also has personal knowledge that doctors have sent orders in for scheduling of outpatient imaging services, but never received a call with a scheduled time. This has happened twice to this writer. The former director said many orders have never been filled or replied to since the new scheduling personnel began.  Why?

Too many questions without answers.

Is Health Tech afraid of becoming too successful so that it is no longer needed? Is Health Tech working for the benefit of GRMC or for its own benefit? Or can a new company make even better improvements to the hospital? Or is there some other reason why a productive employee was fired? Perhaps because of complaints?  Does it have anything to do with Health Tech or a hospital administrator?

What will the GRMC Board of Trustees decide in its special meeting tomorrow?

Look for at least the answer to the first and last questions in this editorial in a later article.