These Hospitals Make The Most Money Off Patients — And They’re Mostly Nonprofits

[Purveyor]

Seven of the top 10 most profitable hospitals in the United States are nonprofit facilities that each netted more than $150 million from caring for patients in 2013, according to a study published Monday.

Topping the list is Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wisc., which earned $302.5 million in profit from patient care services that year, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Washington and Lee University.

Other nonprofits in the top 10 include the Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., which took in nearly $225 million, and the University of Pennsylvania's hospital in Philadelphia, which earned $184.5 million.

"Most hospitals lose money, but there are a few very profitable ones and we need to pay attention to why they are making so much" and how it affects consumers, said lead author Gerard Anderson, a Hopkins health policy professor.

In study in Health Affairs, Anderson and co-author Ge Bai, an assistant accounting professor at Washington and Lee, only analyzed net income for patient care services for fiscal 2013, the most recent year for which data were available. They didn't include profits that hospitals earn from other activities, such as donations, investments, parking fees, rental space and sales from gift shops, which often are used to subsidize patient care.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/02/these-hospitals-make-the-most-money-off-patients-and-theyre-mostly-nonprofits/

[truedelphi]

1. As someone who did "for profit" nursing assistant work

And could rely on patients booted out of hospitals much too early for some of that income, I saw some really outrageous practices at work.

In one case, a woman had a double mastectomy. Although the hospital did not require the patient to suture her own wounds, they did send her home less than 12 hours after the surgery. They told her it would be a "snap" to do the wound care on her own. They offered up a printed booklet complete with illustrations to help with this task.

The lady happened to be a an RN. So she knew that having her breasts removed and lymph glands cut out by both of her arms, less than a day before, she wouldn't be able to accomplish this on her own.

There has to be a special place in HELL for anyone who has anything to do with these types of administrative "advanced practices." Yet they often use these practices in their advertising - "we get you out of the hospital before our competitors would."

[procon]

2. Not surprised to see hospitals with religious affiliations on the list. nt

[Igel]

3. There's no winning.

Too many judgmental people.

"That's a crummy hospital. They should invest in infrastructure."

"They make too much in profit off of patient services. They should reduce all other spending to reduce prices."

"Look, they should have all kinds of ancillary services that aren't directly related to patient services."

"It's horrible that the recession put that hospital out of business. They should have had a reserve."

"Look, I'm in favor of bailing out non profits, but not religious ones."

This report ignored infrastructure; it ignored any services that weren't related to the core patient services, such as counseling, free clinics, outreach. It ignored the fiscal situation of these hospitals. It ignored whether these profits subsidize other members in their network that do lose money. What we *don't* know about these non-profits far exceeds what we *do* know.

I was involved with a non-profit. People looked at one portion of its services and said it was immoral. But it kept no revenue, being yoked with three additional organizations that it funded. It paid above minimum wage, but they wanted higher wages. When a recession hit it had $0 in reserves, and went in the red, but nobody wanted it to reduce wages or cut funding to the ancillary organizations. It finally had to have a crippling bailout that put some onerous conditions on it, and if we defaulted on any of those conditions we could go into a kind of corporate receivership.

There are limited places a non-profit can put money, and the problem with reserves is that everybody knows better how to spend your money to accomplish their missions than you do.

[Baobab]

4. Nonprofits are consistently better- and more affordable

http://www.pnhp.org/resources/pnhp-research-the-case-for-a-national-health-program

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/february/10_myths_about_canad.php