Rural hospitals have trouble treating poor; should they just treat fewer of them?
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LogGrad98
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This is an interesting topic by itself. Does a hospital need to cut a profit, or should it's aim be to break even? I guess that is a discussion of the morality of profiting from other people's potentially life-threatening medical issues. I am talking about the organization itself operating on a for-profit stand-point, not necessarily from the stand-point of paying competitive wages for the skills of the medical professionals. I think those are 2 separate issues.
Hantlers
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Like it or not, this is the real world. Idealistically, we wouldn't have to pay for anything, especially health care. However the majority of hospitals are for-profits, which means that they're going to want to make money AND help people. There is no getting around it. The more profit they get, the more doctors they get, and preferably better doctors. The more profit they get, the better facilities they can have, the better equipment they can have. Better equipment leads to better doctors (because nobody wants to work with ****ty equipment). Hospitals that aren't making money are probably going to have lackluster doctors and results, and well…who wants to go to a hospital like that?
I have more of an issue with insurance companies and the cost-of-schooling than I do with hospitals.
I'm not sure who read the article. If Georgia has accepted the ACA medicaid supplement, these hospitals would be able to treat their patients without losing money. That's something that could be done.
I don't have an issue with hospitals being run for-profit. wikipedia lists the non-profit percentage at 62%, making 38% for-profit. No one will be opening a for-profit hospital in an ecomonically distressed area (so, not in most urban/rural areas); you need a wealthy patient base to make it work. The hospital my company owns makes a small amount of excess revenue, but that gets fed into supporting the clinics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_hospital
I don't have an issue with hospitals being run for-profit. wikipedia lists the non-profit percentage at 62%, making 38% for-profit. No one will be opening a for-profit hospital in an ecomonically distressed area (so, not in most urban/rural areas); you need a wealthy patient base to make it work. The hospital my company owns makes a small amount of excess revenue, but that gets fed into supporting the clinics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_hospital
I think you have confused profit with revenue. The more revenue you get, the more you can pay doctors. Pretty much any Catholic hospital or univeristy-owned hospital will be non-profit, but many of them are the best hopsital in their area.
candrew
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Actually, this isn't the real world. In the rest of the real world (first nation anyway) health care is a right, not a privilege.
Hantlers
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I'm a little confused. You mentioned your company owns a hospital, so maybe you know more…but I imagine that if your revenue increases but your profit does not, you're not going to be able to spend more than you had previously. I'm not going to debate on which hospitals are better between profit and non-profits because there are far too many variables involved.
They also have higher tax rates. Somebody has to pay for it. I agree that things need to change, but I think we need to figure out how we're going to do that before we make those changes.
If your revenue increases and your profit does not, you are already spending more.
Profit = Revenue - Expenses.
Hantlers
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That's not what I'm talking about. I know the formula haha, c'mon man.
If you're spending more, but not making more, it's going to be more difficult to spend more in the future. You'll have tighter margins. Anyways, your profit essentially dictates how much you can spend the following fiscal period. If I make $200K, it means that I can't spend more than $200K unless if I want to go into debt.
So if I notice that I'm spending more, but not making more, I realize that I cannot continue the trend of increasing my expenditures unless if I know that they will make me money. Rarely does one know that something will make them money. Do you get what I'm saying here? I'm not trying to argue, just trying to get my point across. The hospital business is not something I am entirely familiar with (outside of paying their ridiculous bills). I'm just looking at this like a typical business owner.
LogGrad98
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And part of expenses are salaries, even for the owners or executives.
LogGrad98
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amazon.com runs on a negative profit growth model. They haven't reported an actual balance sheet profit in more than a handful of quarters since inception. They rely on high revenue and market growth, as well as strong market valuation, to offset the fact that they are not cutting a profit. A company can spend exactly equal to their revenue and still stay in business, and in fact be healthy and strong. So if they bring in more revenue they can pay more out in salaries as long as their other costs are in check (amazon tends to pay higher salaries than the market at almost all levels, with the notable exception of the CEO). If they have other cost issues then increasing revenue will not help increase salaries, but that is seldom a big issue with a company that is being run competently in the first place.
Nah, it should break even while paying outside rent seekers like myself a hefty, utility-like ROI. I would make them accept all the illegals tho, tbfh.
Still? That's quite interesting, actually.
Hantlers
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In order to run a business like that, you need a ton of capital. Most companies aren't going to have the capital that Amazon has…plus, we have yet to see how sustainable this is. They also have a phenomenal CEO, and a very large market share for the business they are in. They're currently trying to make that share even larger…so we'll see if they continue with their current model once they get the market share that they want. Anyways, it would be a folly to compare a typical business to Amazon, because Amazon is an outlier that would be incredibly difficult to replicate.
The Thriller
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Why SHOULD a hospital make a profit?
green
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For all the same reasons you like to get paid.
Hantlers
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Because it's a business? The majority of for-profit businesses like to ya know…make profits. However like One Brow pointed out earlier, there are plenty of non-profit hospitals. So why can't they treat everybody?
The answer is because if they did, there would be a lot less revenue, and a lot more expenses, which would mean sub-standard equipment and doctors. Can you at least understand why that would be a bad thing?
Our entire healthcare system needs to be redone…unfortunately, I don't have an answer on how to do it. It's a very complicated process. I would love for everybody to be treated, but I can also understand why they cannot do that at this point.
In states that accepted the ACA Medicaid expansion, hospitals can and do treat everybody. Georgia put themselves in this position by refusing it.
Also, it is a current federal law that hospitals have to treat everyone. That law didn't just pop up for no reason.
Also, it is a current federal law that hospitals have to treat everyone. That law didn't just pop up for no reason.