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Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community With only a week left in 2025, we can safely say that the looming wind-down period over the next busy family times leaves us mostly just a few moments to think of the new year ahead. The winter solstice was last Sunday, so a good piece of news is that the days are now back on the getting longer cycle. We’re also being privileged this year with a very mild few days, weather wise, so our thinking ahead can be done in relative comfort.   Being my 70 th  year on earth, 2025 passed by more quickly than any I can remember, and though much was accomplished, I feel I am carrying over a few things into 2026 that I had hoped to have checked off the list by now. Certainly, I had hoped to have had a new doctor sign on the dotted line for future employment with us by now…but surely, we can close that need out in the upcoming first quarter. We have a few candidates in the “interested pipeline”. And may I add my thanks for the wonderful contributions made by Dr. Melanie Byram to our medical community over her career. We wish her all the best in her now retired status.   One thing achieved to which we were just recently notified, is the “zero-deficiency three-year-reaccreditation” received by our MCH Medical Clinic! This review demonstrates that a high degree of evidence-based practice occurs here, along with the serving of highly satisfied customers. So, congrats to our 18-19 providers and staff members who contributed to this designation, led by Sara Roberts!   January will bring in a few legislative changes, mostly brought about by CMS and the Big Beautiful Bill. These changes will affect us in both positive and negative ways, so the net impact is still a bit unnerving. Hopefully the new guidelines will be more subtle than substantial, and we will have ample time to adjust.   As this is my last report in 2025, I want to thank all supporters and utilizers of MCH, and we will strive to serve you even better moving forward! Wishing everyone of you a Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community With the Holidays thick in our midst, we are readily reminded how busy our 21 st century December lives have gotten. Once again, it is all somewhat exhilarating and mind twisting at the same time. At MCH we try to fit in as much work as we can into fewer days, as time off is essential to accommodate the extra demands of the season. This year at MCH we are tasked with higher inpatient demands than normal, while our outpatient services have shrunk some because of the holiday schedules. A feel-good thing is that Christmas songs are filling the air, and we are daily cognizant of the coming birth date of our Lord and Savior.   Closing in on another year’s end awakens my gratitude for the gritty performance our entire MCH team has given in 2025. We began the year having lost a physician in the middle of 2024 and also had two of our current providers scaling back some in a pre-retirement mode. Along with a rebalanced Herington market over the previous fifteen months of their post hospital closure, we witnessed a true leveling off in our business following two years of remarkable growth. This was not effectively forecast, so we fell behind our 2025 targets early in the year. But we held to task and with an effort to capitalize on swing bed and new surgery opportunities, we are closing out the year in a robust manner and narrowing the gap in our expected 2025 results. I ask our entire team to feel really good about their efforts this year, and to continue the course we are on. Our recent and ongoing recruiting efforts should soon pay dividends to fill some provider holes with needed relief. Thanks to ALL OF YOU!   The looming cold air of January and February feels more daunting than in recent years, as the warmth of Chief’s winter victories is not going to align with our 2026 calendar. Despite this, we mustn’t forget…they did give us quite the run over the past decade, (although it sure doesn’t lessen today’s sting). It just doesn’t feel like it should be a basketball focus this early on.   Two weeks from today is Christmas, so if I do not get another newsletter out before then (though I hope to), I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas, and some truly relaxing time with family and friends. Do enjoy the SEASON! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community There is much for a busy hospital to be thankful for – number one, the great providers and staff we have that are striving to meet all the elevated demands – brought on by the bugs of late fall / early winter. We are thankful for the spirit of brotherhood in our small town and for the positive attitudes that mute the naysayers. We are thankful for technology and medicines that speed up recoveries, and we owe a lot of gratitude to the outside vendors and contractors who support our needs from afar. We are thankful for our Creator and the promise of another day…MCH is blessed and we hope we are a blessing to others.   Our “green count” this pay period had some very encouraging numbers, as we begin wrapping up a year that has fallen a bit short of targets, but is gaining on some of those as we wind down the last quarter. Any business must achieve a majority of its targets year by year, or less than desirable adjustments in the future will have to be considered. In healthcare, we are dependent on other industries playing by the known rules of reimbursement, so some of our fate is beyond our control – not unlike farming, construction, retail, and most businesses. This reminds all of us that life is just something to roll with, and we should circle back to being grateful for what we do have.   Please forgive the contemplative mood expressed today – maybe the result of my anniversary falling tomorrow alongside Thanksgiving. Maybe I just really need a vacation. At any rate, I close with one last whimsical thought:   Tis the day before Thanksgiving, may your turkey be thawed…and with temperatures falling may your timber be sawed. As the recipes are picked and the cabinets are restocked, we’ll soon have a time with whom the Chiefs to be awed. Gotta win the rest of them KC – starting tomorrow…May everyone have a great two weeks. -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community Who of you knew that yesterday was National Indian Pudding Day? Seeing no hands raised, I know some of you have heard that the last couple of weeks have honored our Radiology Techs, our Physician Assistants, and our Advanced Practice Nurses… all of whom play such important roles on our Healthcare Team! So, thank you very much: Corky, Deanna, Kirstin, Bailey, Tristyn, Isabel, Teresa, Deb, Carol, Lisa, Katie, Haley, and David – you all rock!   This last pay period has certainly broken records for overnight census for any two-week period since I have been with you. It has been quite the stretch for added everything (I am thinking of extra meals, drugs, and linens – things we don’t frequently discuss a lot, but that take a lot of extra effort from a bunch more hands)! Thanks to everyone for accommodating the additional work – and I have not heard any significant moaning – you are all really good! And - you executed a Health Fair in between!!   It has been a busy two weeks of interviewing various providers for a variety of possible full or part time roles…nice to have people wanting to visit with us and I firmly believe we will have some positive announcements soon. Another hot topic in the last two weeks has been the selection process for our 2026 renewal Medical Plan. When competing insurance companies are seeking your business, it can get pretty interesting, and with the complexities of the several players within each proposal, it can be a tough call as to which option sets itself apart. My team wants the best overall plan for you that our budget can afford, and a decision will come within days.   As we approach another Holiday season – the first freeze is behind us – I hope we can all find ways to help and appreciate each other. Thanks to all of you who find ways to give to the less fortunate and who find a way to brighten the spirit of a sad face!  May everyone have a great two weeks. -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community Another month is today passing us by, and with such, may your treats exceed your tricks. We have had a month of government shut down, but quite a busy month here at MCH, as we have had our highest month overnight census of this year, and very likely the highest revenue month of the year…all before an official first freeze!   We enjoyed the visit of our first of two new possible physicians, two days ago, and we thank Dr. Kayden Carter and her young family for making the long drive down from Rapid City, South Dakota. We know she will land in Kansas sometime next summer, but it is again a question of whether we can come out ahead of another opportunity she has much closer to where grandma and grandpa live. We can hope our merits outweigh such a nice perk. At any rate we also look forward to a visit with Dr. Eric Thomson and his wife, next week!   I pass on a reminder that our clocks once again fall back tomorrow night (daylight savings time ends) - at 2:00 AM Sunday. And do you recall that just a few years ago, in 2022, the Se nate passed the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent, but the House, under previous leadership, allowed it to die without action? I did not remember that, and the reason it has been highly considered is that the disruption to our routines and sleep schedules has been proven to be quite unhealthy for humankind in general. I did not know that either…so do be cautious and careful not to be overly affected.   Morris and Chase County’s alternating annual Health Fairs will again resume in Chase County on November 8 th from 7:30 to Noon at the Cottonwood Falls Highschool. Greatly discounted Lab testing will again be available after a 2–3-year onsite hiatus. As caregivers, we encourage the preventative nature of screening that this event offers to our public residents of either County…so do take advantage. Also on the healthcare front, it is intentional to honor Pharmacists, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Medical Assistants, (and Teachers) as October is their National Recognition Month. It is also the month for Brest Cancer Awareness and Mental Health Awareness!! We send our appreciation to all of you in those lines of work! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community What great Fall weather we are experiencing, with no hallway complaints heard yet (hmm?). The fact that no serious raking has yet been required makes me a happy camper…watch the leaves turn and drop now, since I said such. At MCH, we have been a bit busier lately – it helps when the vacation season is at least behind us for a little while. One nice bit of news is that three newborns were delivered in our hospital last week, a rare spike of bringing new lives right here into Morris County. I am also excited that we have just scheduled two interviews with FP docs who have experience with OB care. Adding more physician coverage to our local mix is a very focused objective over the next few months.   This is an important week in the lives of our Laboratory Staff. A new chemistry analyzer is being staged for installation, which is a disruptive process in that we must maintain testing services throughout the transition of old to new. So, kudos to the lab team which is jumping through some challenging steps to keep our lab testing operating seamlessly until our new and improved technology can be up and running…sometime late next week.   I want to acknowledge all the recruitment efforts that many of you are making by attending area wide fall workforce career fairs: Terri, Kevin K. and Stacy. With those participations and through efforts with local student shadowing invitations, we are seeing a influx of more applications than in recent past, and it has helped us reduce our reliance on traveler shifts. Recruiting and successful retention of staff does require us as a village to work in concert by demonstrating that we are a great place to work. So, thanks to all of you for those efforts.   Have a great next two weeks, and Chiefs: instead of splitting two games like you just did, please win both of them coming up. -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community Quarter 3, 2025 is now in the books…not closed, but being tabulated. The federal government is now partially shut down, but you won’t find MCH shutting down…hopefully for at least another lifetime or ten. It doesn't appear that our services will be compromised much during our Washington insiders politicking gestures. If we had been reliant on Telehealth services, we might have had a disruption in some care, as payment for those services has been suspended, but telehealth is not yet an often-used care vehicle for us. So, we will carry on and hope that the processing for payment of Medicare and Medicaid claims does not get disturbed (it isn’t supposed to be).   As we head into another Medicare Coverage enrollment period, I want to repeat the message we have been delivering for a few October/Novembers now. Traditional Medicare is your proven source for paying the highest percentage of your healthcare claims, over any of the other Advantage Plans that offer you medical coverage. It may not offer the perks of “a fitness membership” or slightly lower premiums, but it will allow you to see the doctor or hospital of your choice, and mostly without exhaustive preauthorization requirements for the services you need or your doctor orders. Advantage Plans can offer value for those healthy patients that do not use much healthcare. But if you have chronic conditions and/or are prone to seeing an array of specialties over the course of a year – please consider staying signed up with Traditional Medicare. The other options truly are not Medicare, even though they are funded by CMS – they are managed by for profit insurance companies, from which us hospitals must really battle with to receive our due payments! Thank you for that consideration!!   We have received our season’s flu vaccine and encourage everyone to stay tuned to our Website’s Calendar for our posted drive through option(s), to easily acquire your vaccination shots. You can also get them during a regularly scheduled Clinic visit.   Nice to have the Chiefs give us a couple of wins since my last newsletter. And congratulations to our City and County for putting on a nice week of historical recognition around the Santa Fe Trail Bicentennial. Hope everyone is enjoying this great fall weather. Have a great next two weeks! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community A pay period beginning with the summer ending Holiday of Labor Day maintained a somewhat sluggish business stature for the rest of the two weeks. Who wants to be sick in these rather perfect days of fall – although we were wetter than usual? As mentioned last week, several of our local crew were trained at the KHA convention, and several new staff were better oriented to our Cerner Rev Cycle software center in Russell. The most impactful learning came from our Eide Bailley consultant, Ralph Llewellyn, who wrapped up his four month-long off-site assessment of MCH, with an onsite workshop in which we prioritized eleven different projects with timelines ranging from two months for completion to one of nearly eighteen months to fully develop. We left with a commitment to find ways of improving our efficiencies through technology, AI driven wherever appropriate, and through our ongoing attentiveness to deliver quality care with each and every encounter.   I remain concerned that recent months’ statistical numbers are lagging to the same months’ numbers as last year. In a time of shifting sands on the Federal healthcare front, with lots of looming changes being final crafted at the policy and procedural level, I know that we cannot be as well poised to embrace the changes with shrinking or flat numbers. Some of our shrinkage has been due to staffing holes in a couple of our service lines, and there is some encouragement as those are being resolved.   We pause and celebrate our Housekeeping team this week, as part of National Housekeeping Week. Our team does a great job in their demanding role, and we are proud of each of them. I remain a bit apologetic about the extended timeline it is taking to get our tiles fully replaced in all of our hallways. I thank everyone for both their patience and tolerance of the added noise it has created. Have a great two weeks, everybody! And let’s get a win this weekend, Chiefs-we are not accustomed to losing! - Kevin Leeper, CEO

Continued Dedicated Service to Our Community It was great to have a contingent of six folks from Morris County Hospital at last week’s KHA Convention. It takes a real effort to get away to these overnight events, and my hope has been to grow our participation year by year. But I must also temper that desire somewhat and say a big thank you to those who stayed home to take care of our real business! However, the training we receive and the added value of networking with our peers do have some real merit for those of us who can get away. And the vendors at the event always introduce the latest technologies and software enhancements that can assist with our processes. My attending the event has made this report a few days late.   I look forward to a report to be given onsite next week, via a grant paid operations assessment of MCH, performed by Eide Bailley, paid for by USDA, and sponsored by the National Rural Healthcare Association. The preliminary report has indicated some opportunities for improvement, a few of which were anticipated, but I am most interested in hearing just how they suggest we implement them. A side benefit could easily be the formation of a more dialed in financing partner, USDA, pending how we respond to the recommendations.   We are ending a long-lasting project of correcting claims posting errors, emanating from a change in contracted billing services at the end of 2024. The number of errors proved to reach further depths than first thought, so the restoration of accuracy to all accounts took most of our spring and summer months. At last, we can release patient statements this week and hopefully return to normal processing. I wish to thank all our patrons who have patiently waited for us to repair what coulda shoulda never been broken. You can see on our website my letter being sent out this week with each statement.   August wrapped up with heavier than normal overnight patient days and less overall than normal outpatient services. Some of this was a product of provider vacations and some was a result of seasonal swings…something I am getting more used to here in rural Kansas. Just want to thank everyone who cares for our patients like they would wish to be cared for…Have a great two weeks, everybody! - Kevin Leeper, CEO

As I write this, we are a field goal away in days (3) from our first meaningful football game of 2025…courtesy of our own K-State Wildcats! That kind of brings cheer to an otherwise mundane life of chasing insurance companies for payment of the services we do love to deliver, here in our HOMETOWN HOSPITAL. Yes, this is my own long term chosen profession, but the billing rules of the game just don’t seem to be followed like they used to be…or I sure can’t keep up well with the new changes. I am just saying, I think I am a part of one very large pool of folks that think getting your healthcare bills paid properly is just one monstrous frustration. Enough – let’s tune in to the Chiefs, the Cats, the Braves, and of course the Horned Frogs, (I should add the J-birds). Life is just better with them on our forethoughts.   I wish to thank the large number of staff, locals, and some visitors who attended our annual golf tournament last Saturday. Though a bit toasty it was a lot of fun, and some reasonably good golf flared up out the heat waves. We really appreciate the support that was conveyed through the turnout and with the generous regifting of the award monies back to the Foundation!’   We are all really encouraged by the visit from a discharged home, Jeremy Thibodeaux, even if it was only to see him come in-house for some therapy. It was great to see you Jeremy, and it sounds like your return to work is only a matter of some more healing time – thank the Lord!  Also in the Surgery domain, we can all be proud of a certification that Morgan Chadd just earned last week: she is now a Certified Registered Central Service Technician (CRCST), which brings an essential set of skills and knowledge to our team. Congrats Morgan!   With our busier than usual census of late, I wish to thank everyone for simply stepping up and taking on the tasks at hand. As a rule, that is what we excel at around here, and that is what keeps people returning for our care. Those attitudes and actions simply must continue as we cannot afford to turn anyone off. Hope all of our teachers and kids are getting readjusted to the classrooms. Have a great two weeks, everybody! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

The ebb and flow tide of bed utilization has once again proved consistent in our truly rural little hospital. Bed demand was virtually nil the first couple weeks of July, but quite the opposite for the last couple weeks of the month. It just reminds us that we are privileged to serve when needed, and we should be content when our residents are comfortably at home during other times. For 2025, only two other pay periods in the middle of winter had more patient days than were experienced this last pay period.   As schools reopen next week, we will see a shift into more routine behaviors, more traffic, and a bit more buzz around town. The dog days of summer are indeed winding down, with the temps hopefully dropping in the nearer horizon. Glad Morris County had a successful Fair Week, and we hope that it will transition into productive yields for our farmers and ranchers this fall. A shout out to Council Grove’s bicentennial celebration this Sunday, and I hope all you music lovers enjoy the local concerts on Friday and/or Saturday at the Amphitheater.   Thanks for staying local for your goods and services and have a great two weeks. And again, thanks to all our team for consistently caring for our patients in a great manner! -Kevin Leeper, CEO

This summer continues to be rather eventful across our lands; with some things we just might have preferred not experiencing. It was nice to see some recent rain rescue our parched farmland, perhaps in the nick of time. And it will be nice to celebrate our historic little town’s two hundredth birthday, maybe with some still green lawns around town, in just a few days/weeks. For a while we have avoided a closed highway (for repairs) heading south out of town, and we are seeing a few housing opportunities open for the first time in quite a while. But our lake’s park system never really got open in time for summer’s customary local economic impact, and once again we are hearing of positive covid cases dotting our landscape – so be careful. We continue to be war-torn overseas, and we certainly don’t know where the next shoe will drop. Just this week our hospital temporarily lost a major portion of its rebuilt surgical team with the unfortunate accident suffered by Jeremy Thibodeaux and unexpected eye surgery of our hard-working Dr. Samani. We wish them both Godspeed in their complete recoveries, and we hope to support them and their families’ needs during this time. Some periods of time are just rockier than others, and that today seems to be where we find ourselves. It is great that many are experiencing some fun and well-deserved vacations. I encourage others to do the same before this fast-moving summer turns into the first school bell ringing. Thanks to Stacy Zeigler for organizing and promoting the two annual golf events in the near future: Disc Golf tomorrow and Ball Golf in three weeks. Hope many of you are planning on participating. It appears that our highest revenue month of the year, June, is being followed by our lowest revenue month of the year, July…but that is rural healthcare by definition: ups and downs. Our Board has approved a replacement Chemistry Analyzer this week, so by October we will have in-house the latest state-of-the-art producer of lab results currently on the market. We are fortunate to be able to stay abreast of most emerging technologies in this small hospital. For that I am very grateful. Thanks, and have a great two weeks, as we head into celebrating two hundred years. And again, thanks to all our team for consistently caring for our patients in a great manner! -Kevin Leeper, CEO