Best financial results in at least a decade for Winneshiek Medical Center

Winneshiek Medical Center ended its 2014-2015 fiscal year with an operating gain of $3,263,401, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday night.

Chief Financial Officer Lynn Luloff praised all hospital employees for holding the line on unnecessary spending, saying "It takes a team to pull off numbers like these."

The preliminary 2014-2015 figures show another increase in revenues.  But revenues also went up during the hospital's 2013-2014 fiscal year--it was just that expenses went up even greater.

Luloff says staff members have been looking for ways to keep control of expenses--and it's paying off.

The preliminary figures show Winneshiek Medical Center took in $95 million--but wrote off $42 million.  Those write-offs took the form of $40 million in contractual adjustments agreed to with Medicare and health insurance companies and $2 million in bad debts.  That left it with $53 million in total operating revenue.  Operating expenses were $50 million, leaving the operating gain of $3,263,401--a 7.1 percent margin on the revenues.