El Paso Children’s Hospital announces sustainability plan; includes renegotiating terms of agreement with UMC

El Paso Children’s Hospital officials announced a sustainability plan on Friday that included renegotiating terms of its agreement with University Medical Center and possibly arbitration between the two to come to an agreement.

Before discussing the plan with the media, Children’s Hospital CEO Ray Dziesinski said that a Universial Commercial Code filing had been made this week by UMC.

Dziesinski said “it is a precursor to potential action that may be taken between the two organizations.”

“I and the board have the responsibility to move forward with appropriate conduct in the event that occurs so I will speak in generalities,” he said.

Dziesinski also said the contract details the procedure to follow in case of a dispute, which is mediation, and he will recommend the board that they consider moving forward with that option on their side.

The parties have 60 days to work with an arbitrator away from the media.

Dziesinski told the media and the doctors and specialists who stood behind him that the hospital is not closing down and is looking at how to move forward.

And he wasn’t the only one who spoke in support of the hospital.

Doctors who were invited to address the media during the news conference at Children’s said they back it 100 percent and were frustrated and disappointed by the media’s portrayal of their institution.

This after months of reports that Children’s was in the red and that it owes UMC upwards of $70 million.

Just this week, the UMC board sent the chair of the Children’s board a letter saying it was proposing a confidential plan to bring a long-term solution to their problem.

Dziesinski said the rhetoric between UMC and Children’s has become heated and he is recommending to the board that they go through arbitration with UMC to reach an agreement.

He also said Children’s debt to UMC is significantly less than what has been told to the media, but didn’t elaborate.

One of the hospital’s solutions is to examine all expenses to see what can be saved without making cuts to programming or staffing.

And he told ABC-7 after the news conference that this plan differed from UMC’s proposal in that UMC’s only addressed changes to UMC’s role on the Children’s board. He said UMC’s proposal did not include economic measures.

Dziesinski said that 24 different options for moving forward have been reviewed, including some that included asking for government funding or shutting down some services at the hospital.

In the plan, Children’s Hospital disputes the amount UMC has told the public the hospital owes and “maintain that in light of the services/spaced actually provided by UMC to El Paso Children’s Hospital, a more accurate amount is significantly less.”

“We have been working with the administration of UMC for three months in hundreds of meetings reviewing our service contracts,” Children’s Hospital said in a statement. “It was determined through that negotiation that the real costs of services provided to El Paso Children’s by UMC is $7.5 million, not the $15 million that we have been charged annually.”

Here are the other aspects of Children’s plan:

Agreements with UMC were written to be renegotiated to make them reflective of actual costs and to reflect actual services compared to estimated needs. El Paso Children’s Hospital is paying $14 million a year in rent for a building and equipment that the taxpayers agreed to pay for. The lease needs to be renegotiated. Agreements with UMC were modeled assuming reimbursement and funding assumptions that never materialized and need to be modified to adjust realities. Working together as partners, the community will have a children’s hospital providing exceptional care for our children today, tomorrow and a decade from now.