Hospitals Hit Hard By Recession

Source: AP

Rural, Urban Hospitals Hit Hardest By Tough Economy

POSTED: 9:04 am EST December 29, 2008
UPDATED: 9:42 am EST December 29, 2008

Gainesville's first community hospital has been on life support since the Shands Healthcare system in northern Florida bought it a dozen years ago.

Now, because of the recession, the plug is being pulled on 80-year-old, money-losing Shands AGH. Next fall, its eight-hospital not-for-profit parent company will shut the 220-bed hospital and shift staff and patients to a newer, bigger teaching hospital nearby as part of an effort to save $65 million over three years across the system.

Like many U.S. hospitals, Shands is being squeezed by tight credit, higher borrowing costs, investment losses and a jump in patients - many recently unemployed or otherwise underinsured - not paying their bills.

All that has begun to trigger more hospital closings - from impoverished Newark, N.J., to wealthy Beverly Hills, Calif. - as well as layoffs, other cost-cutting and scrapping or delaying building projects.

More closings and mergers are on the way, industry consultants predict.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/health/18373529/detail.html

or the eventual pandemic.

either state or federal governments and free to all who need their services.

We just suffered through a massive layoff and the open positions were eliminated through attrition, even in nursing.
IMHO, this is worse than the auto industry failure and very few are paying attention to it.

one just completed a major expansion and the other is building a new state of the art facility. They're in the same town. *scratching head*

bigger expansions with just about every hospital here in Denver. I hardly recognized the Presbyterian hospital - it used to be sorta dumpy, now it's huge and all shiny new.

At Exempla Healthcare, with three hospitals in Denver and its suburbs, Chief Executive Jeff Selberg said there's usually a 5-7 percent annual profit margin, but this year investment losses wiped that out. He's scaled back a $200 million plan to upgrade facilities, information technology and clinical equipment and may halt construction of a new maternity unit and operating rooms at one hospital.

Selberg has seen a slight increase in bad debt and expects more problems.

"We feel like the wave is coming, but it hasn't hit yet, and we don't know how big this wave is going to be," he said.

It's the fault of all those pesky uninsured patients who can't pay their bills.
(please tell me I don't need the sarcasm smiley)