Saint Vincent”™s Medical Center had the best performance in Connecticut for the fiscal year ending in September 2010, even as hospitals across the state complain a new tax could push additional institutions into the red.
Statewide, hospitals earned $401 million in fiscal 2010, according to the Connecticut Office of Health Care Access (OHCA). That includes gains from their investment portfolios, making for a vast improvement from the $230 million they recorded in fiscal 2009 and the $73 million loss the year before.
OHCA noted last year”™s results have yet to show any impact from federal health reform nor from a new tax on net patient revenue Connecticut enacted for the current fiscal year, which OHCA suggested could have a significant impact on both hospital utilization and results.
An August study by Thomson Reuters found that addressing issues related to health reform will be the primary focus for most hospitals over the next three years, even as proposed budget cuts by the Obama administration threaten to muddy the outlook further for hospitals, insurers, employers and families.
Saint Vincent”™s is one of the two largest employers in Bridgeport, along with Bridgeport Hospital. In 2010, Saint Vincent”™s revenue exceeded costs by 10.4 percent, in Connecticut trailing only Johnson Memorial Hospital”™s margin of nearly 29 percent ”“ the result of a bankruptcy filing that cleared $34 million in debt from the Stafford hospital”™s books.
It has been a bad run for Johnson Memorial, which according to the Connecticut Hospital Association was the lone acute-care hospital in the state to experience a generator failure during Tropical Storm Irene, forcing a patient evacuation to other hospitals.
Saint Vincent”™s is an affiliate of Ascension Health, a national Catholic health ministry created in 1999. Since 2004, the hospital has been run by CEO Susan Davis, a former nurse who has oversight for all of Ascension”™s Northeast facilities, including three hospitals in upstate New York.
After leading the state in 2009, Danbury Hospital had the third-best margin last year at 8.8 percent. Its numbers do not include those of New Milford Hospital, however, which barely broke even on the eve of its merger earlier this year with Danbury Hospital. New Milford Hospital is one of just seven hospitals in the state to lose money over the past five years combined, with revenue coming in 1.6 percent below costs.
Net patient revenue, the revenue generated from patient care that is the subject of Connecticut”™s new tax, increased 4.1 percent in fiscal 2010, however, below the 7.7 percent average over the preceding two years.
Statewide, charges for uncompensated care totaled $647 million, down by $11.1 million or 1.7 percent.
