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Several large US health systems published their 2018 financial performance last week, reporting mixed results amid ongoing drops in patient admissions.
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Here’s a quick look at how three US health systems fared closing out 2018:
- Tennessee-based Community Health System (CHS) reported a 13% jump in revenue year-over-year (YoY) in Q4 2018 to reach $3.5 billion, weathering a 9.7% YoY decline in Q4 admissions. CHS’ decline in admissions is largely attributable to the health system’s ongoing divestiture push: CHS sold 11 hospitals and closed three others in 2018 alone, per Healthcare Dive. Hospital closures are a product of a long-term decline in inpatient admissions — and this trend struck rural areas particularly hard: While just three rural hospitals shuttered their doors in 2010, there were 16 closures in 2015, and 95 rural hospitals closed between 2010 and 2018, for example.
- Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic posted a 5% YoY increase to reach $12.6 billion in 2018, up from $12 billion in 2017. Mayo Clinic only reported its full-year performance and didn’t break out its Q4 2018 revenue. Mayo Clinic’s strong financial performance comes despite implementing a $1.5 billion project to overhaul its electronic health record (EHR) software under one system from EHR vendor Epic. Like Mayo Clinic, 35% of the US provider market intends to switch EHR vendors by 2021, likely due to the high rates of physician burnout and poor interoperability linked to existing offerings.
- Results were less rosy for San Francisco-based Dignity Health: Revenue declined 18% YoY to $3.4 billion in Q4 2018 amid a slight decline in acute admissions.Dignity Health’s salary, wage, and benefit expenses as a percent of net patient revenue also jumped from 43% in Q4 2017 to 52% in Q4 2018, a reality that health systems across the US will have to grapple with as a shortage of up to 121,000 physicians by 2030 exacerbates wage costs.
See Also:
- US rural hospitals are facing a financial crisis
- A new Medicare payment model will likely spur telemedicine adoption and reduce costs
- THE US HOME HEALTHCARE REPORT: How US providers are using telehealth to tap into the booming home healthcare market
Source: Business Insider – nlineaweaver@businessinsider.com (Nicky Lineaweaver)