Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyers2001
I don't know where they get their info, but I read that out patient care accounts for close to 50% of their revenue. its a drastic increase and one they will continue to explore and take advantage of. its why they are so excited about 3737. I will paraphrase the article which ran in HUPs monthly update tomorrow when I go into work.
not disagreeing with what pays what, but Penn Medicine will continue to value and expand their outpatient treatment centers based on the revenue increase.
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Ah, well there are two types of outpatient. There are all the ambulatory practices many of which moved into PMUC (3737) and some have ambulatory procedure areas there as well. Then there are the outpatients in beds at the hospitals. Places like 3737 and much of Perelman are geared towards short surgeries where you walk out after a minimal period of time. So those are more profitable since they have little overhead. Once you get a bed in the hospital, then you aren't just dealing with the surgery staff and someone monitoring you in post-operative areas. You enter the world of the pharmacist, the social worker/CRM who tracks your stay, potentially the various therapists, food services, floor clerks, transport people, clergy, facilities, housekeeping, etc. Someone has to pay for the non-clinical staff and the short procedures don't really cover that - though if you did enough of them it would sure help.
Penn has about 2,000 beds across the five locations and last I ran some data, there were more outpatients in beds than inpatients. The inpatients typically have a much higher per day payable rate though. The numbers you read about may include all those outpatients in beds as well as all the walk-in/walk(or wheel)-out procedure places as well. That might even include dialysis and infusion rooms which when added to those other procedure areas may be hundreds more.
The ugliest thing about Inpatient vs. Outpatient in a bed is when Medicare decides to deny the stay as an Inpatient (more expensive) level of care. That almost always means the patient is then paying a MUCH higher co-pay due to Medicare tagging them as an Outpatient in a bed (often referred to as "Observation") even though the overall bill is much lower. Medicare saves money but the patient gets hosed by Medicare.
It all shows that basically it is a major pain in the — to run a health system and keep it even slightly in the black. You have to be flexible and adapt to how things change over time or you have to try to merge with other hospitals to try to survive with efficiencies in numbers. Hospital Administration = no thanks! LOL
Cheers,
G.
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