Media

The University of Toledo Medical Center continues to lead the way in revenue growth for the school, even as costs mount to fill vacant lab tech and other similar job positions using third-party vendors.

Patient service revenues for the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital were more than $26 million higher than expected for fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30, with more than $377.5 million collected compared to roughly $351.1 million budgeted, according to the final budget numbers.

Those revenues are nearly $52 million, or 15.9 percent more, than the more than $325.6 million collected in 2022.

Click here to read the full article

“University of Toledo President Dr. Gregory Postel, who joined the elected officials on the tour, said a plan is already in the works to create an inpatient psychiatric unit at UTMC sometime in the next two years for adults. Doing so would connect other offerings at UTMC, which include pediatric psychiatric services, and geriatric psychiatric services, as well as research opportunities in those and other fields.”

“Governor DeWine spoke of how UTMC, which was put up for bid in the spring of 2020 by UT trustees before they backed away from that initiative months later, is vitally important to the quality of life for northwest Ohio residents.

He said that was clear to him Monday during the tour when he and the rest of the group saw the work being done at the Dana Cancer Center, the Kobacker Center — or behavioral health facility where they saw the child and adolescent psychiatric units — and the surgical intensive care units since it was upgraded from a Level 3 to a Level 2 facility.

“A governor is supposed to look at things from a big picture, and the big picture is this needed to stay — that relationship needed to stay,” said Mr. DeWine, in his second term as Ohio governor. “It would not be helpful to see that separation, and that was just abundantly clear from what we’ve seen across this country.”

Click here to read the full article

Following an executive session — and no public discussion on the matter — trustees unanimously adopted a resolution allowing UT President Dr. Gregory Postel and his leadership team to negotiate changes to the academic affiliation agreement between the UT’s College of Medicine and Life Sciences and ProMedica.

In separate action Wednesday, trustees approved the creation of a separate board to oversee the medical center, UTMC, and all health facilities and clinics, thus replacing the current Clinical Affairs Committee. 

The new UT Health Board will have 15 members consisting of two trustees, two department chairmen or faculty members, the dean of the health sciences college, the UT president, the dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences, the UT executive vice president/chief financial officer, and seven members of the public. 

Dr. Postel said the board allows for all the operations to run more efficiently to better plan budgets and strategy while standardizing operations for a more highly functioning organization.

Click here to read the full article

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said Wednesday his office would sue ProMedica if it does not pay the University of Toledo at least $3.8 million under a medical education agreement the two organizations struck in 2015.

The community organization Save UTMC organized a news conference Wednesday calling on ProMedica to catch up on its payments. The hospital had struggled in recent years, facing a deep budget deficit in 2020, though it has since rebounded.

Critics of the affiliation agreement said the deal was hurting UTMC — siphoning faculty and resident talent from the teaching hospital to ProMedica and contributing to the facility’s financial woes. UTMC has since rebounded, but the Save UTMC group on Wednesday said they are again concerned after the missed payments, and proposed cuts to the medical school.

“It’s really simple — ProMedica and UT have entered into an affiliation agreement, and if one party is not adhering to the terms and conditions of that agreement, then that’s a breach,” said Randy Desposito, president of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 2415. “So what we are asking the UT administration to do is to stand up and hold ProMedica accountable for the monies that is alleged that they owe to the University of Toledo.”

Former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, a leader of the Save UTMC group, said the affiliation agreement “has been disrespected and recently totally disregarded, walked away from, by ProMedica.

“We want ProMedica to be successful,” he added. “We do not wish them to be as challenged financially as they are at the moment. But that does not give the right to ProMedica to walk away from an agreement with UT and UTMC.”

Click here to read the full article

University of Toledo officials say ProMedica has fallen behind on its required payments to its medical college as part of a seven-year affiliation agreement, but ProMedica counters that UT owes it money, not the other way around. 

UT spokesman Meghan Cunningham said Monday that ProMedica missed its August and September payments to UT — but wouldn’t say how much those payments are — as part of a 50-year affiliation agreement in 2015 that calls for millions in annual payments from ProMedica. Beginning in 2020, that amount was set at $50 million.

Click here to read the full article

In projections through the end of June, UTMC appears to have exceeded the 2021-2022 budget’s overall operating revenue prediction by over $25 million. Numbers for clinic visits, surgeries, admissions, and kidney transplants are all trending upwards, Mr. Holmes said.

Accompanying a 5 percent increase in the price of their medical services, UTMC also hopes to increase their patient volume by 4.5 percent in the next year. They anticipate $284,888,076 in patient services revenue alone, which accounts for 35 percent of all budgeted revenue for UT.

Click here to read the full article

The University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio, has been designated as a Level 2 trauma center, which means that the hospital has greater capabilities to respond to incoming trauma cases.

On Tuesday the state granted the designation approval, which the hospital sought late last year. The University of Toledo Medical Center had been a Level 3 trauma center since August 2019 after it chose to downgrade from a Level 1, an action that came on the heels of a poor financial forecast at that time.

Click here to read the full article

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved a higher Medicaid reimbursement rate for the University of Toledo Medical Center that will provide another $25 million to the institution.

UT President Dr. Gregory Postel said Wednesday the decision puts UTMC, formerly known as the Medical College of Ohio Hospital, in line to potentially receive this funding, and more, on an annual basis.

Click here to read the full article

Despite dire predictions that the University of Toledo Medical Center would run a roughly $14 million shortfall by the end of June, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital instead came out roughly $4 million ahead.

Click here to read the full article