DHB may write off $500,000 bad debt

Debt write-offs could cost the Whanganui District Health Board $500,000 this year.
The figure was flagged at yesterday's board meeting by Brian Walden, the strategic and business support general manager.
The board's financial statement showed that debt levels were currently running at $2.9 million and, while $1.7 million of those were current, $993,000 were debts that the board was carrying for 90 days or longer.
Mr Walden has been given new management roles and one of those involves overseeing the board's finances.
He told the meeting that previous attention to the bad debts had been "tardy" and that he had appointed a new staff member on a six months contract to tackle the problem.
The biggest debt is in the name of ACC, which has $298,000 owing to the board for more than three months.
"ACC has been identified as a problem area in previous reports and is now receiving more attention with the support of an additional administrator," Mr Walden said.
Another blowout has occurred in the area of dental treatment, with unpaid debts totalling almost $397,000 accruing from people who use the hospital system because they cannot afford private treatment.
"A number of them are adults and on some sort of benefit," he said.
Mr Walden said the board was still owed a total of more than $95,000 from non-residents, with the majority of that debt owing for more than 90 days.
He said recovering that money would be "challenging" because it involved collecting those funds from overseas insurance companies.
"This whole area of debt needs much closer review and it will be addressed," he said.
Board member Michael Laws asked how much of the $993,000 was unlikely to be recovered.
"Most of it," Mr Walden said.
"Last year the figure was about $1 million. Some can be cleared up quickly but 50 per cent of it we won't collect at all."
Philip Sunderland said a close eye needed to be kept on the debts running up to 30 days overdue "because if you don't then they quickly flow into 90 days".