With the budget for Fiscal Year 2014 being the primary item of business at the board of directors meeting for Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, some acknowledgement was given to how recent circumstances are making the fiscal environment uncertain for the health care industry, including Phoebe.

A number of factors come into play that officials say has the potential to cost Phoebe several million dollars in the coming months, including Georgia’s decision to decline expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, elimination of Disproportionate Share Hospital dollars — a program in which hospitals could receive at least partial compensation for the treatment of indigent patients — as well as continued growth in high deductible health plans, the number of uninsured and under insured and the continuing increase in medical innovation and technology costs.

“That is hurtful for the entire industry, but particularly here,” said Joe Austin, chief operating officer for Phoebe Putney Health System, of the Medicaid issue at a finance committee meeting earlier in the day Tuesday.

The budget, which was approved by the full board after it had been reviewed and recommended by the hospital’s finance committee, included a projected net income of $5.5 million for Fiscal Year 2014, up from $1.6 million the previous year.

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