The Geary Community Hospital Board of Trustee’s met Thursday morning for several hours discussing the upcoming budget that begins May 1st.

Due to increased financial and regulatory pressures Hospitals across the state and nation are looking to tighten up their budgets and find cuts anywhere possible, GCH is no different.

Dr. Joe Stratton, GCH CEO explained that they are looking into a one to two percent cut to all general expenses in the upcoming budget.

“We think it’s just like anybody if you try a little harder you can squeeze your budget down and maybe not spend money in quite a free of a way and be a little more cognizant about how the money is spent and where it is spent,” Stratton said.

The hospital is also installing a new phone system this summer, thanks to a 50/50 split with the Geary Community Healthcare Foundation, which Stratton said will save as much as $43,000 a year in maintenance costs.

Stratton also mentioned that they are looking to budget for increases to their revenue’s, but he doesn’t expect patient costs to go up. The hospital is focusing more on out-patient care and is hoping to increase the volume of patients there to see the revenue increase.

“It’s more of a volume issue, and driving the out-patient services as much as we can to enhance the revenue.”

GCH did take a $50,000 cut to it’s funding from Geary County last year and the Hospital has budgeted for that and is not expecting to gain any of that back this year.

Pay raises are also still on the table at this time for GCH employee’s but how much of a raise has not yet been determined.

“We know that the cost of living goes up for everybody on this campus, regardless of where you are here at GCH in our system as a worker, either clinical or non-clinical. We want to try and do something to help employee’s this year, and I think we will be able to do that, but that has yet to be decided on a percentage.”

As of right now the budget is expected to fall around $43 million. The Board of Trustee’s is expected to take a final look at the budget and possibly adopt it during their April 28th board meeting at the hospital.