bad debt news from FierceHealthFinance
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Moody's leery of uncompensated care backlash
Moody's Investor's Service is nervous about what the next few quarters will bring for investor-owned hospitals. In a recent report, it noted that such companies could take a serious hit to their... Read more...
Healthcare collectors beware: Credit card chargeoffs up sharply
Healthcare organizations already know that bad debt is rising to increasingly painful levels as consumers lose jobs and otherwise struggle to pay their bills. Just to provide some perspective, bear... Read more...
HCA predicts better first-quarter profits
HCA has reported that it expects to announce much-better first-quarter profits for this year compared with 2008, largely due to higher outpatient volume and better control of expenses. HCA now... Read more...
Fitch: For-profit providers stable in Q4 2008
At last, some (moderately) good news on hospitals' financial status. Fitch Ratings has announced that results for the final three months of 2008 for for-profit hospital companies were stable,... Read more...
Moody's pans profit outlook for for-profit hospitals
Yesterday, we told you about a study concluding that more than 50 percent of U.S. hospitals were in the red. Now, Moody's Investors Service has chimed in with its own gloom and doom, offering a... Read more...
Tenet Healthcare loses $33M for Q4 '08
Tenet Healthcare Corp. reported a $33 million fourth-quarter loss for 2008, a loss largely driven by a charge stemming from the sale of two hospitals. Tenet had originally expected a $5 million... Read more...
HCA admissions up, but net income down 23 percent for '08
Despite the bruising financial climate, HCA reported some positives, but its numbers are under stress. The hospital operator reported higher admissions for the fourth quarter of 2008 as compared with... Read more...
TX legislators propose standard for valuing hospital charity care
A work group appointed by Texas legislators has proposed a standard for calculating the cost of charity care provided by the state's non-profit hospitals, with the idea of determining the actual... Read more...
Moody's downgrades 18 hospital bond ratings in two months
Up until this most recent financial quarter, Moody's was downgrading and upgrading nearly equal numbers of hospital bonds. In October and November of this year, though, Moody's has downgraded 18... Read more...
Study: Best self-pay collectors 300 percent better than worst
Everyone knows that some businesses are better at self-pay collection, but how much better? The findings of a new study suggest a surprising discrepancy: the best collectors are as much as 300... Read more...
