MEEKER | The Eastern Rio Blanco Health Service District board held its regular July meeting last week at Pioneers Medical Center with all board members present. The day began with the board’s financial meeting, where members reviewed fiscal reports and discussed shifting hospital funds from out-of-district bank accounts to local institutions to improve interest earnings and simplify oversight.
The hospital currently holds two CDs and a non-interest-bearing checking account at Yampa Valley Bank in Steamboat Springs. One CD matures in August and the other in October. The checking account has $21,000. Board members expressed interest in moving those funds into local banks.
“I’d like to see that money come back into our district,” said Secretary/Treasurer Sherri Halandras, adding that local options like Bank of the San Juans offer competitive rates and benefit the community more directly.
Mountain Valley Bank—within district boundaries—holds two accounts totaling about $520,000, while Yampa Valley holds roughly $500,000. Board members supported moving money locally, but acknowledged any institution receiving public funds must comply with state requirements.
“Public money has to be backed appropriately,” cautioned Chief Financial Officer John Nadone. “The auditors also like to see the funds spread out.”
Following the financial report, Nadone provided an operational update. While overall revenue appeared lower, he explained it was due to reallocation of inpatient service revenue for accuracy. After accounting for a $2.5 million depreciation expense, the hospital reported a net income of about $332,000. Collections for June held steady at approximately $3.7 million, consistent with May. Their weekly meetings continue with Amplify, the hospital’s revenue cycle partner, to address delays and denials from insurance companies.
“Unfortunately, we’re the ones that deal with the patients on that,” Nadone told the board. “Hospitals have always had a difficult time fighting the insurance companies.”
Other updates included the hospital’s launch of its new Athena system in the clinic. The system is currently used only for clinical workflows—not billing or coding—and is expected to improve continuity of care and reduce manual tasks in the future. Billing transparency also came up as a concern. Board members cited vague or missing patient statements.
Nadone confirmed that efforts are underway to revamp the patient billing system for better clarity and accountability. The board also discussed expanding sweep and interest-bearing accounts to avoid overdraft issues. Nadone noted the need to prioritize more urgent operational fixes before reporting changes to Medicare.
“We had to put priorities on what hurdles we had to jump over,” Nadone said.
Following the financial meeting, the board opened its regular session. After approving the agenda and minutes—with corrections from Sherri Halandras regarding last month’s discussion about the proposed shift from a seven- to five-member board. Once those corrections were made, the board moved forward with a presentation from Executive Assistant Natalie Scritchfield, who introduced a new meeting participation and preparation policy.
“It’s recommended that a board holds a policy to help set guidelines and expectations for board preparation with regards to the agenda, as well as public participation,” Scritchfield explained. “This policy would set a five business day window to add items to the agenda so I can prepare my materials more efficiently and get them out to you guys sooner.”
Member Wade Bradfield had questions about how the new rules would be communicated to the public. He asked how the agenda would be posted online and how the new public comment policy would be made known.
“The public needs to be notified. We’re putting new rules in place,” Bradfield said. “If you don’t sign your name prior to the meeting starting, you won’t be allowed to talk. How are you going to inform the public of this?”
Scritchfield responded that most districts post agendas under board meeting tabs on their websites and she would be happy to post it onto the website. Sherri Halandras addressed some issues with the hospital website’s updates, including missing information about current board members.
“There’s been some bugs on the back end,” Scritchfield said. “We are focusing on accessibility and ADA standards within the website, reducing the number of PDFs, making links, and making sure they all work. We’ve edited a lot of the interface where the public is going to interact with it, and we’re working through the list.”
After hearing about the new policy the board moved to approve the new meeting policy. Later in the meeting, the board discussed housing and apartment use. The hospital currently has apartment buildings on Shults Drive and then leases eight other apartments in town on 10th Street and 4th Street.
“My thoughts are, why are we renting to people and then leasing others?” asked Halandras. “I would like to see it cleaned up.”
Board President Mark Schryver reflected on the original purpose of purchasing apartments: “We didn’t want it to be a monopolized system situation. I would say it was fair to the community as well as helping us take care of recruitment.”
Halandras responded, saying, “You hire a new doc in—they need a place to live, not an extended period of time—or a new employee, say a year, and they can find something.”
CEO Liz Sellers emphasized the role of hospital-owned apartments in staffing. “We need those apartments in order to maintain the staffing of the hospital,” she said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve had eight of those maintained, and we have travelers in those areas where most of our travelers go to share an apartment.”
The board also held a discussion with their current attorney, Michael Santo. Board members addressed concerns and governance during board meetings including interest in limiting executive sessions while still recognizing their value for confidential matters such as the apartment purchase. Sherri Halandras started to make a motion to review the hospital’s current legal contract with their existing attorney and explore different options but later withdrew it. Bradfield raised concerns about not being sworn in after his recent reelection, at the public meeting along with new board members Gianinetti and Halandras, highlighting the need for consistent adherence to statutes and board protocol.
Dwayne Gunter, CEO of Ovation Healthcare, spoke to the board about the company’s commitment to supporting independent community hospitals. Emphasizing Ovation’s focus on leveraging economies of scale to help rural hospitals remain financially stable while maintaining local control. Gunter also addressed misconceptions about the company’s origins, clarifying its evolution from Quorum Health Resources and affirming its dedication to community-based care. With investments in technology and AI, Ovation aims to provide tools that enhance operations without pushing hospitals toward consolidation.
Near the end of the meeting, under other business, board member Jean Gianinetti brought up water system issues at the hospital.
“We had two companies out trying to mitigate finding what they saw,” said Sellers. “I think they finally had found them, and we just had one go out here by orthopedics. It’s the last one to do. We’re going right back on it. Unfortunately, they could not find all the leaks.”
Gianinetti also reported that deer had entered through a broken gate and caused more than $3,500 in damage to trees in the hospital’s courtyard and orchard. She stressed the importance of maintaining the landscaping, especially for residents in the wing who view it from their windows.
The meeting concluded with an executive session under Colorado statute 24-6-402-4b to confer with legal counsel about ongoing litigation. The next board meeting is scheduled for Aug. 26, 2025, in the IT training room at Pioneers Medical Center.