Spring 2001

Courtyard of Caring will provide therapeutic benefits to residents and patients

Do you remember how relaxed you felt after weeding a row of flowers in your garden? How a walk outdoors gave you more energy? If so, you experienced the therapeutic benefits of horticulture.

Area master gardeners, the Perham Rotary Club, and PMHH are hoping the residents and patients at the local hospital and nursing home will reap these same benefits with the Courtyard of Caring. These three entities are spearheading a project which will include momentous improvements and changes to the courtyard area which rests in the interior of the hospital and nursing home complex – creating an area that will be inviting to residents and patients.

“Therapeutic horticulture is the purposeful use of plants and plant-related activities to promote health and wellness for people,” said PMHH activities director, Karen Laughlin. “The outdoors and gardening stimulate all of the senses, giving great pleasure and satisfaction and bringing people together.” She added that in its present state, the courtyard doesn’t facilitate use by patients and residents because the lack of plants and trees is uninviting and the area is difficult to navigate through without sidewalks.

Appropriately named, the Courtyard of Caring will give residents one more activity in which to be involved and will make the nursing home feel more home-like. The view from hospital and nursing home rooms will be spectacular – even in the winter months as plants provide shelter and seeds for birds and hold snow and frost for winter interest.

Design features of the courtyard will include:

Six feet wide sidewalks with a railing allowing wheelchairs to pass and residents the independence of walking alone in the garden
Planters raised to two levels to accommodate gardeners standing or in wheelchairs
An additional entrance/exit to the existing gazebo which was built several years ago by the Perham Lions Club
Comfortable seating areas in the shade and sun
Subtle lighting for evening enjoyment
Shrubs, trees, and flowers for color, sound, fragrance, habitat, and year-round enjoyment
Estimated project cost is $50,000

“The Perham Rotary Club chose to help with this project to follow Rotary’s theme of ‘service above self’”, stated current club president, Dean Simpson. “The club’s goal is to help create a legacy to those who have already given so much to our community.” The Perham club has generously donated $5000 toward the Courtyard of Caring and members plan to roll-up their sleeves on April 28 when they will remove the existing concrete patio and install footings for the new sidewalks and positioning the needed underground facilities for lighting and irrigation.

For additional information on the Courtyard of Caring, or to make a donation, please contact Jean Johnson, Perham Rotary, at 758-2714, or Sue Von Ruden, PMHH community relations coordinator, at 346-1210. Donations can be made payable to PMHH/Courtyard of Caring, % Perham Rotary, P.O. Box 3, Perham, MN, 56573.

Remember your hospital tax credit
Visit PMHH business office with tax receipt, bill

Taxpayers in the Perham Hospital District can receive a rebate on their hospital district taxes when they use PMHH services. Authorized in 1993 by the hospital board of trustees, the program was established to encourage choosing our hospital for health care services.
To get the rebate, there are two things you need to do:

bring in your 2000 tax receipt showing your portion of the hospital tax, and,
your hospital bill.

You will receive a credit up to the amount you paid in taxes in 2000 against the 2000 charges you owe.

The tax credit can be applied to inpatient care, lab work, x-ray, physical therapy and occupational therapy charges that are not covered by insurance, Medicare, or medical assistance. Emergency room services are not eligible for the tax credit.

Confused about the relationship between PMHH and MeritCare?

With all of the partnerships, mergers, joint ventures, and other arrangements in health care today, it can be very confusing trying to understand relationships. Over the years, many have questioned what the relationship between Perham Memorial Hospital and Home (PMHH) and MeritCare is, and honestly, it’s changed over the years. In this newsletter, we are hoping to help you understand our relationship better.

What exactly is the relationship between PMHH and MeritCare?
Legally, the two are completely separate entities with no ownership relationship. However, operationally in Perham and New York Mills, we are so seamlessly entwined you can hardly tell us apart and it would be difficult to separate the two.

PMHH is a Hospital District which is a governmental unit made up of three cities (Perham, Dent, and Richville) and ten townships. We are also a non-profit 501C3 charitable organization. MeritCare is also a non-profit charitable 501C3 organization as recognized by the IRS. Neither entity has any “owners” to divide the profits among. Profits must be invested back into the organizations. PMHH owns the hospital, nursing home, and Briarwood. PMHH owns the building that the clinic is in and rents that space to MeritCare at fair market value. So, our legal relationship to the clinic is simply that of landlord.

There are two formal relationships that do exist, however. First, the board of the Perham Hospital District has a management contract with MeritCare to provide an administrator for PMHH as well as management resources and oversight. This contract has been in place since 1985. The administrator of PMHH is actually an employee of MeritCare but by the nature of the contract must maintain his/her loyalties to the board of the Perham Hospital District and the citizens that it serves. The second relationship is East Otter Tail Pharmacy. The retail pharmacy on the PMHH campus is half owned by MeritCare and half owned by Perham Hospital District.

Operationally, we are working diligently together to provide one seamless health care continuum in Perham and New York Mills. We have only one laboratory, one radiology department, one physical and occupational therapy department, one medical record department, etc. We have worked hard to eliminate any duplicate services. As you move through our continuum, it is unlikely you would even know which entity actually “owns” the service you are receiving.

Up until recently, the clinics in Perham and New York Mills had a separate administrator. In the summer of 1999, MeritCare approached the hospital board and asked if the hospital administrator, who is actually a MeritCare employee, could also oversee the two clinics. Because our goal is to provide one seamless health care continuum for all of our patients, this idea made sense to everyone. What this means for you is no more finger pointing or getting caught between two separate systems. If you have a concern or question, it is our concern no matter which entity you bring it up to.

Why do we get three bills?
The one area where we are still not able to be seamless is in the area of billing. Because we are two separate entities with separate licensees and separate Medicare and insurance contracts, we need to bill separately for our services. If you see a physician in either the clinic or hospital, MeritCare will bill you. If you receive hospital services such as lab, x-ray, or physical therapy, even if you are a clinic patient, you will be billed by the hospital. The bill must come from the entity that owns that part of the service. The third bill you occasionally receive is from Fergus Falls Medical Group for reading your x-ray, mammogram, ultrasound, CT, or MRI. Because we do not have a radiologist in Perham, we contract with the radiologists in Fergus Falls to provide that service. Again, because they own that service, they do the billing for that.

Our future hope would be to reduce the number of bills you receive to two or even one. That won’t happen in the near future, but we know it would make life easier for you and us.

What if MeritCare is a preferred provider for my health plan and PMHH isn’t? Or, vice versa?
In the past, this was a common problem. Your insurance may have directed you to MeritCare, but when you had lab or x-ray services done they said that PMHH was an “out-of-network” provider and you had to pay more out of your own pocket. We have worked diligently with insurance providers in our area to recognize that for the delivery of health care, we operate as one provider. In almost all cases, we have been successful and rarely run into this problem any more. If you have had this problem in the past, please give our business office a call. It is likely that the problem is now resolved.

Welcome to new members of board of trustees

Werner, representing Rush Lake Township, succeeds Cal Dockter who won election to the at-large member position, while Rubbert replaces Stephanie Frank as representative to Star Lake Township.

Other board members gaining re-election include Kathy Hemmelgarn, Pine Lake Township; Bernice Genoch, Dead Lake Township; Rosie Borgerding, Edna Township; Gail Quittschreiber, Corliss Township. Each of these seats carries a four-year term. The remaining seven seats on the board are held by Bill Cavanagh, Pine Lake Township; Jerry Kunza, City of Perham; Jane Aschnewitz, Dora Township; LuAnn Carow, Gorman Township; Perry Coleman, City of Dent; Betty Cordes, Ottertail Township; and Gilbert Ebner, City of Richville.

Spring 2001

Courtyard of Caring will provide therapeutic benefits to residents and patients

Confused about the relationship between PMHH and MeritCare?

Welcome to new members of board of trustees

Two women recognized for contribution to PMHH