Community Service Recipients

Past Presidents

A Welcome From

Alison Heyde
Executive Chamber Director

Rochester & Lake Manitou
Chamber of Commerce

822 Main Street | Rochester, Indiana 46975

Phone | (574) 224-2666
Fax | (574) 224-2329

chamber@rtcol.com

Office Hours | 8 am - 5 pm, Monday - Friday

June  Member of the Month:  Woodlawn Hospital

Hospital employees gathered in front of the newly expanded building.  Front from left:  Cheryl Leininger, Nancye Herrold, Jason See, Chamber of commerce intern Lesley Cox, Karen Anderson, Woodlawn Pres. & CEO - John Alley, Chamber exec. director Alison Heyde, Becky Kopka, Deb Paxton, Beth Davis, chamber pres-elect, Chuck Kumler.Back from left:  Mike Perdue, Brad Rogers, Cheryl Musselman, Deb Lemasters,  Sue Field, Greg Watkins, chamber director Kendra Chudzynski, Jeff Paulik, Pat Rathbun, Karen Jason, Shannon Hord, Ron Thompson, Greg Descoteaux.

The guiding philosophies of Woodlawn Hospital have sustained through 105 years of service.  Delivering quality care balances the ever-changing healthcare environment with the values that we preserve and practice every day.  We know that to reach our vision for the future, we must be “providing excellent healthcare services by highly skilled staff in a compassionate and caring manner” –everyday of every week of every year.

As nonprofit rural hospitals have struggled, they have not foregone their commitment to provide care for those who cannot afford to pay.  Woodlawn Hospital continues to provide compassionate care to anyone financially unable to pay for services.  In 2009, Woodlawn Hospital provided nearly $1.45 million in compassionate and $5.175 million in uncollectible accounts on gross revenues of $64 million, decreased by contractual adjustments from Medicare and third-party payers of almost $26.4 million. While Woodlawn Hospital is a county-owned facility, the taxpayers do NOT pay any money for its day-to-day operations – wages, new equipment, and so forth.

Currently, a national Critical Access program for rural hospitals with 25 beds or less has been implemented to right the reimbursement inequities of the past.  Since Woodlawn Hospital’s designation as a critical access facility was obtained in 2003, Medicare reimbursement has been more favorable.  The critical access program is based on the percentage of Medicare volume rather than just the total number of patients served.  As you may know, our area has a significant number of senior citizens, so this program helps us provide service when it might not otherwise be feasible.

Over the past few years, Woodlawn Hospital has enhanced many of its existing programs and has added several new ones, such as a new 64-slice CT scanner, electronic medical records, and point of care electronic records.  Woodlawn Hospital continues to recruit specialists and new physicians, so area residents may obtain excellent healthcare, here at home, rather than traveling long distances to larger cities. There are 347 employees on staff, creating an annual payroll of over $17 million.  There are currently 18 active physicians on staff with approximately 75 specialists in areas of neurology, urology, cardiology, emergency medicine, radiology, pathology, and so forth.