By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital “must beat misperceptions” that its healthcare services are too expensive to be accessed by middle and lower income Bahamians, its chief financial officer says.

Dennis Deveaux told Tribune Business that the BISX-listed healthcare provider has already moved to tackle such beliefs through slashing patient deposit requirements by 50 percent and introducing its Loyalty Advantage (LAMP) primary care initiative that gives patients access to a doctor via membership plans ranging from 75 cents to $1.50 per day ($30-$40 per month).

“There’s a misperception around affordability at Doctors Hospital,” Mr Deveaux conceded, asserting that it would never seek the $250,000-$500,000 patient deposits requested by major Florida hospitals for catastrophic cases. 

“It’s non-existent that we’d seek that requirement and impose it on Bahamians. It doesn’t exist,” he added. “We lowered deposit requirements during the crisis by 50 percent. That lowers the barrier to access at the point of needing care.

“That means taking on more accounts receivables risk, and we have to be careful how we manage that and ramp up at the back end. It’s a perception that we need to beat, we have to deal with that, and we hope that Loyalty Advantage and other initiatives help us to do that long-term. We think Loyalty Advantage, allowing unlimited access to your primary care physician for $10 per week, might be the best kept secret in The Bahamas.”

Felix Stubbs, Doctors Hospital’s chairman, in his first quarter report to shareholders for the 2022 financial year confirmed that patient deposit rates have been slashed in half. Echoing Mr Deveaux’s caution, he added that there was “a significant increase in bad debt expense, which correlates to the significant increase in trade receivables”.

The 50 percent deposit slash resulted in larger accounts receivables balances, representing monies owed by patients and insurance companies. Accounts receivables owed by “third party payers” such as insurance companies grew by more than $5m during the three months to end-April 2021, rising from $15.401m to $20.993m. Those figures are net of a $5m provision for debts that Doctors Hospital doubts it may be fully able to collect.

“The company continued its initiative of reducing its traditional upfront deposit requirements to allow access to critically needed care without the large financial impediment,” Mr Stubbs said. “Deposit requirements were reduced by 50 percent. The changes taken by the company has invariably led to larger trade receivable balances and higher provisions against the related balances.”

Meanwhile, Mr Deveaux said Doctors Hospital was in the process of “aggressively expanding” beyond its traditional business model of an in-patient hospital and tertiary care provider into outpatient services and primary care, based on a vision of offering “quality affordable healthcare for all Bahamians”.

He revealed that Doctors Hospital plans to launch an elective surgery facility, with two operating theatres initially, at Centreville Medical Centre within 45 days in response to such procedures having previously been delayed by COVID-19 and the hesitancy of some patients to attend facilities where they fear the virus is present.

Explaining that elective surgeries are those that typically require less than a 24-hour hospital stay, Mr Deveaux added: “That’s a huge spectrum of different types of cases. We expect the demand to be pretty high. We’ll launch with two operating theatres and evaluate the need for additional ones thereafter.”

He revealed that Doctors Hospital will also unveil another specialist internal medical practice within the next days, although he provided no details. “We see the role of the hospital, and this is part of the president’s vision, very differently from its traditional focus, which was in-patient. Now it’s to facilitate healthcare throughout The Bahamas.

“I think it is about expanding the delivery of healthcare in The Bahamas beyond the in-patient space and beyond Nassau. It is the very best high level quality care, but beyond the in-patient space to out patients and beyond Nassau to the rest of The Bahamas.”

Crediting the strategy and vision to Dr Charles Diggiss, Doctors Hospital’s president and chief executive, and who has become its largest shareholder, Mr Deveaux said the company’s financial strength is such that it has not had to call upon the $13.5m equity injection from Canadian-headquartered Fairfax Financial to fund any of its current financial projects.

Some 2m ordinary shares, representing a 17 percent interest in Doctors Hospital, were issued in exchange for the investment. Acknowledging that “decisions made during COVID-19 will shape the boundary for Doctors Hospital for the next generation”, Mr Deveaux told this newspaper: “We’re poised and ready to do it.

“The Fairfax investment is not earmarked. With the combination of new equity and maybe debt, we could do most of what we’re talking about. We have it held. It’s sitting in Treasury Bills. It’s not earmarked for any particular project, but we’ll continue to look at it as needed to fund growth.”