INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — After more than a year of negotiations, the management of the Indian River Medical Center has finally provided the Hospital District Trustees with a written counter-proposal in their dispute over indigent care reimbursement rates.
While neither side revealed any details of the counter, there has been about a $2 million per year gap between what the District is offering in taxpayer subsidies and what the hospital says it needs.
Meanwhile, even before the District had a chance to consider the medical center’s written proposal, questions have arisen over a dinner meeting District chairman Tom Spackman had with hospital board members and consultants a few weeks ago where the hospital team told him what they want from the District.
That meeting, Spackman and District lawyer Glen Torcivia now say, was a likely violation of the Sunshine law because three hospital board members were present.
Since they discussed hospital business, the meeting should have been open to the public, they said.
“The dinner was not a violation of Sunshine because it was to set the agenda for the strategic planning meeting the next day, which didn’t have to be in the Sunshine,” countered Hospital CEO Jeffrey Susi.
“I was beat up at both meetings,” said Spackman, who is on the hospital’s strategic planning committee, and was the only District trustee present to defend the District’s position.
“I wouldn’t say anyone was beat up,” countered Susi. “I’d say it was a good, intellectual discussion where differences of opinion were given.”
Spackman said the medical center hammered home three concessions it wants from the District:
The medical center wants the District, which owns the hospital land and facility, to decrease its oversight of hospital operations;
The medical center wants the District to give it the amount it says it needs for indigent care;
The medical center wants the District to agree to let the hospital meet outside of Sunshine Laws.
“We can’t acquiesce to less oversight, more money and letting them operate behind closed doors,” said District trustee Harris Webber at last week’s District meeting.
District Trustees Jim Seaton and Marybeth Cunningham agreed.
“The District, as the foremost representatives of the taxpayers, should not be negotiating with the hospital,” said Seaton.
“A court would view the District as a grant committee,” said Cunningham.
Meanwhile, Susi scheduled an emergency meeting of his hospital board this week to discuss the written counter-offer hospital attorney Bill Stewart sent to the Hospital District negotiators last Friday.
Spackman said he and other District trustees would attend the meeting.
While he declined to reveal any details, Susi said “we have definitely kicked the ball down the field and are moving in the right direction.”
District negotiators only said they were “delighted to get something in writing from the hospital, finally,” but said they had not yet evaluated the document.
At last week’s public meeting, District trustees and members of the public clearly showed their frustration.
Recently retired District Trustee Burton Lee, who attended the meeting as a member of the public, said: “We have been stiffed for so long after being sweet-talked by the hospital I think we ought to consider selling. An Orlando hospital is interested in buying.”
But the likelihood District trustees would support a sale seemed remote.