Carolinas HealthCare reduces 1Q loss - The Business Review (Albany):

ermolayxitpev.blogspot.com
Investment losses for the latest quarterf totalednearly $101 Chief Financial Officer Greg Gombar anticipates gainse in the financial market in April and May will erase those losses. Carolinas HealthCare uses investmen t earnings forcapital expenditures. That money is not used for dailyg operations. The health-care system hopes negotiations with several lenders will cut its interesf expenses tied to variablw debt andhigher bank-liquiditu fees. Those fees are aboug $1 million per month. Interest expenses in the firsty quarterwere $21.8 million.
From an operational Carolinas HealthCare had a stronvgfirst quarter, says Russ Guerin, executivde vice president for business development and planning. Net operating revenues climbed 8.6 percent to $1.2 billion systemwide. Operating incomse exceeded $24.5 million. The health-care system saw adjustedx discharges — a calculation that gauges patientactivithy — climb 5.2 percent from a year earlier. Growth withimn the health-care system and expense managemenft “is the primary driver why we’re abovwe budget significantly,” Guerin says.
Carolinas HealthCare spent morethan $106 millionh on capital projects in the first Projects include new operating rooms at CMC-NorthEasft and Carolinas Medical Center, an expansion of CMC-Pineville, a new hospital at CMC-Lincolnb and construction of health-care pavilionw in Steele Creek and Waxhaw, which will include free-standing emergency departments. Challenges in the comingt months include managingthe system’s growing bad-debty and charity-care costs, reducing interest expenses and preparing for a possible statee cut in Medicaid funding, Gombar Bad-debt costs were 12 percent over budgeft during the first quarter, topping $48 million in the first During the same period last bad debt was about $43 million.
The health-care systemk spent more than $770 millioh in community care in includingbad debt, charity care and subsidizing Medicare and That equals 18.8 percent of the health-care system’w net operating revenue. ”It’s a trend everybody’s seeinhg across the country,” Gombar says. “Wse can’t control how many people are uninsured, how many peopled show up at our doorwithourt insurance.” North Carolina’s budget woes couldc results in a cut of up to 15 percenrt for Medicaid. That could equate to $36 million in annual losses forCarolinas HealthCare. “Medicaid cuts are the worsty economic benefit cut the state can Gombar says.
“It’s painful.” Says Guerin: “Itf raises prices for those whodo pay. It makea no good business sense to do Gombar says every dollar cut from Medicaicdeliminates $4 from the Carolinas HealthCare is the largest health-care system in the Carolinaz and the third-largest public system in the nation. The system leases or manages 25 hospitals. It has more than 40,00o0 full- and part-time employees.