OLIVIA - Home health visits are a losing proposition for the Renville County Public Health Department, which calculates that it costs an average of $150 per visit to provide the service, while it only collects $82 in reimbursements.
Unbeknownst to the department, it should have been paying Minnesota's 2 percent provider tax on the revenues it receives for providing the service.
Jill Bruns, director of the county's public health services, told the Renville County Board of Commissioners that she had believed that the home health service was among a number of tax-exempt services the department provides. She was wrong, she told the commissioners at their March 6 meeting.
They will be voting Tuesday whether to approve an $18,000 payment to the Minnesota Department of Revenue to make things right.
Bruns said she contacted the Department of Revenue when she learned the home health service was not exempt from the tax. The department will pay the $18,000 in taxes based on revenues received during the years 2015, 2016 and 2017.
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She said that about one-half of the public health departments in the state were similarly unaware of their obligation to pay the provider tax.
The department's charges for the service are capped based on Medicare requirements, and those charges fall short of actual costs for providing the services.
The department has an annual budget of $1.4 million and there are reserve funds to pay the back taxes.
