Hospital Study Shows Money Lost on Care

From the LA Times (via Symtym):

Half of the hospitals in a six-county region including Los Angeles lost money on patient care in 2004, according to a report to be released today.

Of 212 hospitals in the region that year, the latest for which figures are available, 107 spent more treating patients than they were able to collect for that care, according to the report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

State-mandated nurse-staffing ratios, high property taxes and high numbers of uninsured patients make it "very hard to do business in Southern California," said David Langness, a spokesman for Tenet Healthcare Corp., which operates 12 hospitals in the region, down from 28 hospitals three years ago.

The Hospital Assn. of Southern California commissioned the report, the first of its kind, to gauge the role hospitals play in the region's economy.

The association highlighted the finding that hospitals and related services contributed $85.5 billion worth of wages, purchases and taxes — about 12% of all goods and services produced locally.