HERMANN — The future of Home Health Care services provided by Hermann Area District Hospital (HADH) was made more uncertain Monday morning when the county’s health agency rejected an offer to take over the program.

The Gasconade County Health Department Board of Trustees unanimously agreed that the agency should not make home health nursing another service being provided by a sometimes-short-handed staff. The matter came up during the health agency board’s regular monthly meeting Monday morning at the Hermann office.

Health Department Administrator Kenna Fricke told the board that HADH Administrator Dan McKinney had approached her about the possibility of the health agency taking over the program, which finds itself in the crosshairs of McKinney’s efforts to trim costs at the hospital.

The Home Health Care program was one of several aspects of HADH’s operations the hospital board spent some time discussing during its monthly session Monday, Oct. 24. One of the problems the program is facing is obtaining insurance and Medicaid reimbursement in a timely manner. Indeed, program manager Nurse Callie VanBooven told the HADH directors that she spend the vast majority of her time doing paperwork and trying to collect payments for nursing services provided to patients throughout the hospital district.

The amount of clerical work involved was one of the concerns Fricke cited to the health agency trustees when presenting McKinney’s inquiry.

“It’s bills, it’s coding, it’s dealing with Medicaid,” Fricke said. “I came from Home Health,” she added, referring to previous job in a public health agency.

One of the trustees suggested that if Home Health Care was brought under the umbrella of the Health Department, it would need its own clerical staff.

“In my opinion, it needs its own…everything,” said Fricke. “It’s a lot,” she added.

Board President Stan Hall said in light of various services the department is providing now out of the Hermann and Owensville offices, taking on another service would further stretch an already strained staff.

“I wouldn’t even stick a little toe into some of these other things,” he said. “I think we should indicate to Dan that we don’t want to be involved in Home Health Care.”