The Cookeville Regional Board of Trustees approved a $502 million operational budget for the 2027 fiscal year during a special called meeting Wednesday.
Chief Financial Officer Tommye Wells said the facility is budgeting $21.9 million in net income for the upcoming year compared to a projected $10.1 million for the current fiscal year. Wells said the hospital maintains a healthy financial position with a budgeted operating margin of 6.7 percent.
“The facility will continue to invest in employees next fiscal year with salaries and wages increasing approximately $13 million for workforce growth, merit increases, bonuses and market adjustments,” Wells said.
Wells said the budget includes an eight percent increase in net patient service revenue driven by higher patient volumes and new physicians. Wells said the hospital also plans to invest $13 million into its workforce for growth, merit increases, and market adjustments.
“One of the larger projects consist of the following: our inpatient rehabilitation facility expansion is budgeted at 24 million, which represents a 50 percent ownership in a joint venture with Encompass,” Wells said. “The other large item is for Epic.There is approximately 17 million that remains for the completion of our new electronic medical record system.”
Wells said the $88 million capital budget includes $60 million for expansion and renovation projects. Wells said these projects also include $10 million for a new endoscopy wing.
Board Chairman Danny Rader said he remains concerned about the cost and implementation of the Epic electronic medical record system. Rader said the product is the most expensive version available and questioned if a more moderate version would have been sufficient.
“I think everybody agrees that Epic is an excellent technological product, but it’s the most expensive version of the most expensive product that’s available to the hospital and they purchased it last year,” Rader said. “Quite frankly, I did not think that that had been fully vetted and I continue to have that concern and in the budget this year there are, as Tammy Renee said, several million dollars budgeted towards that.”
After the budget was approved, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Johnson said the Epic software is a “no-brainer” for the medical staff and is the industry standard for patient care and data collection. Johnson said the version selected is actually cheaper than a previous model considered through a Vanderbilt contract.
“It’s not that we’re buying a Lamborghini versus a Fiat,” Johnson said. “I mean, they’re all expensive. They all have advantages and disadvantages. But we’re coming out of a system which is just subpar. And so when you look around and you see where all the trends are going, you talk to any physician who’s been trained in the last decade, everybody who’s worked other places, all of them, 100%, not… it isn’t like almost all, all of them say, ‘Epic.’”
Johnson said the investment in the software will pay off in the long run, as it helps increase the amount of money the hospital can garner through insurance companies as a result of complexity of care.
Cookeville Mayor Laurin Wheaton said she wanted to highlight how much the hospital does to support the community despite the high cost. Wheaton said the hospital is projected to provide $32.7 million in uncompensated care through bad debt and charity.
“32 million dollars that we write off and we do not collect from patients,” Wheaton said. “I want to make sure that everyone’s aware of that,” Wheaton said. “That is a huge number that’s going to continue to go up and that’s something that we do because we want to provide services for our community and we do that.”
The Cookeville CIty Council will consider the budget beginning later this week.