Penobscot Bay Medical Center

Inpatient & Outpatient Hospital Care: Penobscot Bay Medical Center (PBMC) provides quality medical care regardless of race, creed, sex, national origin, handicap or ability to pay. Although reimbursement for services rendered is critical to the operation and stability of PBMC, not all individuals possess the ability to purchase essential medical services. Our mission is to serve the community by providing health care services and health care education. In keeping with this hospital's commitment to serve all members of its community, we provide free care and subsidized care to persons covered by governmental programs below cost, and health activities and programs for the community. (Continued at Schedule O)(Continued from Part III, Line 4a)PBMC served 881 inpatients, including newborns and 47,343 outpatients including ER visits, during the short period. Twenty-four-hour medical emergency service is provided in the Emergency Room, staffed by full-time attending physicians. Patients are seen regardless of ability to pay. There were 4,654 visits to the Emergency Room during the short period. Recognizing its mission to the community, services are provided to both Medicare & MaineCare patients. To the extent reimbursement is below cost, PBMC recognizes these amounts as contractual adjustments. For the short period, the amount of unreimbursed costs reported as contractual adjustments totaled $43,255,621. During the short period, approximately 65% of services were to patients covered by these governmental programs. Additionally, PBMC provided $1,963,771 in free care to patients not covered by governmental programs. PBMC provides free conference room and meeting space for a variety of health related groups including Alcoholics Anonymous, Al Anon, Midcoast Cancer Support Group, Heart to Heart, Cardiac Spouse Support Group, Crohn's Disease Support Group, Visually Impaired and Blind Support Group, Pediatric Asthma Support Group, Ostomy Group, Midcoast Mastectomy Support Group, Northeast Health Consortium for Integrated Care, Breast Cancer Intervention Project, Mid-Coast Coalition for Domestic Abuse, Teen parenting, Women's and Children's Community Care Project. Assistance is provided to educators through our work with medical students, student nurses, physical therapy interns, emergency medical technicians, medical records and social service students.Through an arrangement with the University of Maine - Orono, our Education and Training department offers nurses with certificate degrees the opportunity to work toward a baccalaureate degree in the local area. The hospital maintains a research library which is open twenty-four-hours a day and available to the general public. During the short period, the community contributed approximately 1,533 hours toward the common purpose of servicing the health care needs of the community. The value of this contribution is given back to the community through lower costs in both patient services and other wellness programs such as those described above.