Powell Valley Healthcare parts ways with management company

Posted 6/20/17

The Powell Valley Healthcare Board voted Wednesday to not renew the organization’s contract with HealthTech Management Services, which has employed PVHC’s chief executive officers since 1992 — first as Brim Healthcare and as HealthTech since …

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Powell Valley Healthcare parts ways with management company

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Terry Odom to stay on as permanent CEO

A 25-year-old partnership between Powell Valley Healthcare and its management company is coming to an end.

The Powell Valley Healthcare Board voted Wednesday to not renew the organization’s contract with HealthTech Management Services, which has employed PVHC’s chief executive officers since 1992 — first as Brim Healthcare and as HealthTech since October 2010.

Board President R. J. Kost said PVHC and HealthTech mutually agreed to not renew the contract, which will expire June 30.

However, the board is happy with interim CEO Terry Odom’s leadership and wanted her to continue at PVHC’s helm permanently; HealthTech “agreed to cut her loose” from the company, Kost said, and Odom agreed to take the job (see related story below).

Kost said HealthTech is moving away from hospital management and focusing on consulting services instead.

“They decided this time to say it’s time to just not extend this one, and we agreed,” Kost said after an executive session of the board on Wednesday.

The contract originally expired about a year and a half ago, but has continued through extensions since then because of Powell Valley Healthcare’s ongoing bankruptcy process. The organization went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2016 to help it deal with around 20 lawsuits alleging malpractice by Dr. Jeffrey Hansen, an orthopedic surgeon formerly employed by Powell Valley Healthcare.

Kost said the board feels Odom has the best knowledge to help the organization complete the bankruptcy process, “plus she is willing to go ahead and stay on as our CEO.”

He noted that the vote to terminate the HealthTech contract and the vote to employ Odom both were unanimous, with the three medical officers on the board absent, but voting by proxy.

“They all were 100 percent in agreement, too,” he said.

Odom said the parting of ways between HealthTech and Powell Valley Healthcare “is amicable, but it was a mutual decision. It was just time to separate.”

The HealthTech Management Services contract cost Powell Valley Healthcare approximately $25,000 per month, Odom said.

Of that $300,000 annual total, about $210,000 went to Odom’s salary, judging by her contract with PVHC; Odom’s salary “hasn’t changed very much” with her change in employment, she said. Among other benefits, her contract also includes six weeks vacation, housing and a vehicle.

Kost said Powell Valley Healthcare will look for another management company, but not before the bankruptcy process is complete.

“It is difficult to do during bankruptcy,” Odom said. “We don’t want to lose focus.”

Odom said the bankruptcy process might wrap up by the end of the year.

“There’s some key dates coming up,” she said. “We’re looking at maybe a mediation in August, between all the parties — a global mediation.”

Kost said the biggest disagreement between Powell Valley Healthcare and HealthTech came when HealthTech filed a document in bankruptcy court “trying to say that PVHC and the [Hospital] District were basically the same entity.” Although they share most of the same board members, the PVHC board says the non-profit organization is separate from the taxpayer-owned Powell Valley Hospital District.

HealthTech’s filing came in response to Powell Valley Healthcare’s draft plan of reorganization in the bankruptcy case.

The proposed plan would involve PVHC paying $3 million to 19 people who say in lawsuits that they were injured by negligence from Dr. Hansen; the patients also allege that PVHC, then-CEO Bill Patten and, in turn, HealthTech, acted too slowly on complaints about the surgeon.

Under the plan, the patients would be allowed to continue pursuing claims against not only PVHC’s insurance companies, but also against HealthTech.

In documents filed with the plan in April, Powell Valley Healthcare leaders said HealthTech might choose to end its relationship with the organization over the proposal, but PVHC “would like to retain HealthTech as its management company.”

In response to the plan, HealthTech asked the judge presiding over the bankruptcy case for permission to question some of the patients suing the hospital and every single PVHC board member about the plan — and requested 70 categories of documents; one of the questions HealthTech said it wants to ask is whether PVHC “had the authority to file for bankruptcy protection.”

In a joint response filed last month, PVHC and a committee made up of former Hansen patients said HealthTech’s requests amounted to harassment, noting that Odom — then HealthTech’s own employee — “recommended and supported, that [PVHC] file for bankruptcy protection.” The response said HealthTech was “obviously unhappy” and was trying to throw a “monkey wrench” into things to get a better deal.

In a filing last week, PVHC and HealthTech said they’re currently negotiating how HealthTech is treated under the plan.

Meanwhile, Odom said HealthTech leaders have indicated they are willing to talk about providing any services Powell Valley Healthcare might need, outside of management services.

One of the biggest benefits management companies provide is the advantage of group purchasing organizations that can buy in bulk and get bigger medical equipment discounts, she said.

In addition, management companies offer “back-office support” — consulting, legal services and health care experts, she said.

For instance, HealthTech provides software that helps evaluate the effectiveness of positions in a given organization and benchmarking services that allow hospitals to see how they’re doing in comparison to similar facilities, Odom said.

After serving as Powell Valley Healthcare’s interim chief executive officer for two years, Terry Odom will drop the “interim” part of her title July 1.

Although PVHC has decided to part ways with the management company that had employed Odom, she recently agreed to stay on as the permanent CEO as a Powell Valley Healthcare employee. She says there’s more work to do at PVHC to make the organization what it can be.

Odom came to Powell from New Mexico two years ago, hired by HealthTech

Management Services to provide interim leadership.

“The board asked me to stay, and so my husband and I thought about it, I talked to HealthTech and I made the decision to stay here,” she said Thursday.

“I want this hospital to be a viable part of Powell, for the economy and for the local health care,” Odom said. “I’m committed to the organization as long as the board believes I’m doing an effective job.”

Odom said she has 30 years of hospital management experience. She entered the health care field as a registered nurse in Santa Fe, “right out of college,” she said. Four years later, she became the director of surgical services, and “I worked my way up to administration.”

She has held positions as chief nursing officer, chief operating officer and chief executive officer. Most recently, she was CEO of a Santa Fe surgery center.

“It’s funny,” she said. “I didn’t get into health care to go into administration.”

Odom said her husband, O’Brien Mason, will remain in New Mexico for the foreseeable future.

“We’ll travel back and forth until he retires; I’m not sure when that will be,” she said, “but he’s been very supportive of the decision.”

Her contract with PVHC allows her to seek reimbursement for some flights to see family.

Odom said she’s found Powell to be a welcoming community, and she enjoys working at Powell Valley Healthcare.

“Of the organizations I have worked for, this is a really committed workforce,” she said. “They want to grow. They want to do better.

“I think, sometimes, we all have to just keep the expectation that we’ll all try harder. ... I’m not done yet. We’re not done yet.”

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