https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/financial-worries-keep-hospital-ceos-up-at-night/546982/

Dive Brief:

• Financial challenges, including increasing costs, shaky Medicaid reimbursement, reductions in operating costs and bad debt, ranked No. 1 on the list of hospital CEO worries in 2018, according to an American College of Healthcare Executives poll.
• Government mandates and patient safety and quality tied for second place in ACHE’s survey of top issues facing health systems. Workforce shortages came in third.
• A little more than 350 execs responded to the survey and ranked 11 concerns their facilities faced last year. Behavioral health and addiction issues, patient satisfaction, care access, physician-hospital relations, tech, population health management and company reorganization filled in the remaining slots.

Dive Insight:

No matter which cog in the healthcare system one blames for the skyrocketing costs of healthcare (big pharma inflating the list prices of drugs; hospitals for upmarking services; insurers for leaving gaps in care resulting in surprise bills) consumers’ pocketbooks aren’t the only ones affected.

A separate American Hospital Association-backed study predicted health systems will lose $218 billion in federal payments by 2028, and private payers (whose dollars would normally help hospitals make up the difference) have been curtailing reimbursements as well.

Bad debt was another fear in the ACHE report. Uncompensated care costs peaked in 2013 at $46.4 billion and, though the figures have decreased slightly since then, hospitals shelled out $38.3 billion in 2016. Wisconsin alone was on the hook for $1.1 billion in uncompensated care in fiscal year 2017.

“The survey results indicate that leaders are working to overcome challenges of balancing limited reimbursements against the rising costs of attracting and retaining talented staff to provide that care, among other things,” ACHE president and CEO Deborah Bowen said in a statement.

Other financial concerns included competition, government funding cuts, the transition to value-based care, revenue cycle management and price transparency.

And 70% of hospital CEOs were worried about shifting CMS regulations in 2018, along with regulatory/legislative uncertainty (61%) and cost of demonstrating compliance (59%) — unsurprising, given the current administration’s track record of unpredictability.

Patient safety and quality of care was also top of mind for health system CEOs, with over half of respondents anxious about the high price of medications, involving physicians in the culture of quality and safety and getting them to reduce unnecessary tests and procedures.

Also of interest was the high rank given to addressing behavioral health and addiction issues, according to Bowen, which ranked fifth in its first year of being included in the survey. The topic has been front and center in the industry of late, in line with the increasing recognition of social determinants of health and the breakdown in silos of care.

Ranking of the issues has remained largely constant since 2016, though in 2017 more hospital CEOs were concerned about personnel shortages than patient safety and quality.