Hospital debt sees increase in 2007
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, January 16, 2007
Citing rising costs from uninsured and underinsured patients, healthcare analysts say bad debt is undercutting hospitals' profits, and there's no relief in sight, according to The Tennessean.
The issue of uninsured and underinsured patients is a wide-ranging problem with no simple answer, though a number of states are working to provide basic coverage to all residents.
The bad debt they incur from treating patients will have an impact on publicly-traded hospitals' stock prices.
The problem is that "the uninsured and underinsured population is growing faster than hospitals can boost admissions or raise prices to insurers," Robert Hawkins, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore, told the newspaper.
Overall, the number of uninsured Americans under age 65 climbed from 39.6 million in 2000 to 46.1 million in 2005, according to the Washington-based Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. People 65 and up are covered by the federal Medicare program.
Source: The Tennessean
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