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Trustees review 2024 audit report
Labette Health trustees heard a report on the 2024 audit on Thursday that reflected the challenges facing the health care industry.
Heather Eichem and Ashley Davis of Wendling Noe Nelson and Johnson LLC, Topeka, gave the report.
The hospital had 136 days cash on hand in 2024, which was down from 151 in 2023, the audit showed. Other hospitals had 67 days in 2023, the most recent year for available data. Days cash on hand means the hospital could operate on its cash reserves for that number of days. Bond covenants require a certain number of days, and Labette Health has exceeded those requirements.
The audit showed a $3.5 million loss from operations, which was more than in 2023. The 2024 loss resulted from $100.3 million in operating expenses compared to $96.8 million in operating revenue.
The hospital’s net position grew $2.7 million in 2024 from $56.4 million in 2023 to $59.2 million in 2024.
Challenges with the 340B program, which is supposed to provide hospitals with upfront discounts on certain
See HOSPITAL, Page 3.
drug purchases to benefit patients and community health initiatives using the cost savings, have been costly.
At least two pharmaceutical companies have restricted the use of contract pharmacies in the program, and some use a rebate model rather than offering upfront discounts.
Hospital CEO Brian Williams told trustees the $2.7 million profit in 2024 came from the good management of the financial directors.
He said if the 340B program operated as it had been in past years, the trustees would have seen a better financial report.
“The pharmaceutical industry continues to get richer, and hospitals continue to get poorer. So as long as we continue to allow that to happen, drugs in our country are unaffordable. Don’t blame it on the hospitals,” Williams said.
“So our elected officials need to stop listening to the lies the pharmaceutical industry produces, the ads that they ran in Topeka,” he said. Ads claimed that Kansas hospitals used 340B funds to conduct sterilizations, perform abortions, treat illegal immigrants.
“Those are all just fabrications. The truth is we’re here to provide safe, high quality health care to people that are less fortunate than us for the most part, and those monies have been stripped away from us, so we’ve had to be magicians to try to continue to reinvent ourselves,” Williams said.
He said his concern is that hospitals will continue to face financial challenges not of their making, which could lower the bar of quality care as hospitals cut more and more expenses.
“That’s my concern and my fear for the health care industry. And I think that’s shared by a lot of CEOs. At what point do you begin to affect the quality and the safety of the care that we’re responsible to deliver?” he said.
Trustees approved the audit report. Trustees also approved changes to the strategic plan and agreed to hire Dr. Dennis Higginbotham, an obstetrician and gynecologist, to work part time. He recently retired and decided he wanted to work part-time. Williams said Higginbotham will work Tuesdays and see patients and operate on Mondays.
