Greenwood County Commissioners heard a request at their meeting this week from Greenwood County Hospital representatives in need of funding to help with a Medicare payback. GWCH board member Pam Brown explained that the new half-cent sales tax for the hospital will not go into effect until April and will likely not be available to the hospital until June. When budgeting, board members were under the impression that the tax would take effect in January, as that’s what commissioners had indicated prior to verifying with the state. With the hospital no longer receiving the three-mills from the county and not having the extra sales tax dollars yet, Brown and hospital CEO Sandy Dickerson requested $105,000 from commissioners. According to the request, “We owe Medicare roughly $176,000 on the cost report, you may not be aware the hospital gets paid based on our costs and we have done several cost-saving measures this past year that impacted that – kind of a double-edged sword.”
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