BWWMH to take over portion of Cancer Center
The governing board of Bryan W. Whitfield Hospital voted Thursday morning to take back control of the chemotherapy portion of the entity’s cancer care center as of July 1.
The hospital turned over control of the facility to Southeastern Cancer Network of Tuscaloosa in 2005.
“Based on our numbers, we’re looking at a positive bottom line of about 8.5 percent, about $165,000 to $167,000 annually,” BWWMH administrator Mike Marshall told the board of the estimated economic impact of resuming control of the facility. “That’s a conservative number. That’s not accounting for any oncology gains.”
“As long as we could make a fixed bottom line figure, we’d recover the expenses of that area down there,” hospital CFO Art Evans told the board. “We’re doing this because (of) basically the drug expenses – which is why we got out of the business and gave it to them.”
In addition to the potential financial impact of regaining control of the facility, Marshall said he believes the measure will allow the hospital to expand the effectiveness of the entity.
“It would give us some oversight in terms of marketing and outreach,” Marshall said of the administrative desire to have its cancer doctors out in the community and in nearby places such as Thomasville. “Having some oversight to push our doctors to get out and do this, I think, would help grow the business.”
The hospital decision to resume the cancer services is in stark contrast to a growing nationwide trend in which some facilities are abandoning management of cancer services entirely.
“There’s an article that came out yesterday that a lot of the big hospitals nationwide have been telling their patients who have been seeing them for chemo that they are not going to be offering chemo anymore,” Marshall told the board.
When questioned as to why he believed the measure would be profitable for BWWMH, Marshall stood by the bottom line numbers in the administrator’s projections.
“We’re going to turn it into more of an all-inclusive infusion center rather than just chemo,” Marshall said of the future of the facility.
The Southeastern employees at the Cancer Care Center will become hospital employees as of July 1.