Fitch Ratings Senior Director Kevin Holloran dubbed 2022 the worst operating year ever and most nonprofit health systems reported large losses. However, the losses are shrinking and some systems have even reported gains during 2023 so far.
Cleveland Clinic reported $335.5 million net income for the first quarter of the year, compared with a $282.5 million loss over the same period in 2022. The health system reported revenue of $3.5 billion for the quarter. Cleveland Clinic has 321 days cash on hand, which puts it in a strong position for the future.
Boston-based Mass General Brighamreported $361 million gain for the second quarter ending March 31, which is up from a $867 million loss in the same period last year. The health system reported quarterly revenue jumped 11 percent year over year to $4.5 billion. The system’s quarterly loss on operations was down significantly this year, hitting $8 million, compared to $183 million last year.
Renton, Wash.-based Providence reported first quarter revenues were up 5.1 percent in 2023 to $7.1 billion, and operating loss is also moving in the right direction. The system reported $345 million operating loss in the first quarter of 2023, down from $510 million last year.
All three systems cited ongoing labor shortages and labor costs as a challenge, but are working on initiatives to reduce expenses. Cleveland Clinic and Mass General Brigham reported operating margin improvement to nearly positive numbers.
Kaiser Permanente, based in Oakland, Calif., also reported operating income at $233 million for the first quarter of the year, an increase from $72 million operating loss over the same period last year. The system is focused on advancing value-based care for the remainder of the year and its health plan grew more than 120,000 members year over year.
Even more regional systems are stemming their losses. SSM Health, based in St. Louis, went from a $57.4 million loss for the first quarter of 2022 to $16.5 million quarterly loss this year. Revenue increased 13.3 percent to $2.5 billion for the quarter, with increased labor expenses and inflation on supply costs continuing to weigh on the system.
UCHealth in Aurora, Colo., also reported a first quarter income of $61.8 million and revenue of more than $5 billion.
Not every system is seeing losses decline. Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, which reported larger operating losses in the first quarter year over year, hitting $658 million and $1.1 billion for the nine-month’s end March 31. The system was able to reduce contract labor costs, but still finds hiring a challenge and spent time last year recovering from a cybersecurity incident.
Hospitals face a long road to financial recovery from the pandemic as inflation persists and labor shortages become the norm, but movement in the right direction is welcome.
Last month, Eric Jordahl, Managing Director of Kaufman Hall’s Treasury and Capital Markets practice, blogged about the dangers of nonprofit healthcare providers’ extremely conservative risk management in today’s uncertain economy.
Healthcare public debt issuance in the first quarter of 2023 was down almost 70 percent compared to the first quarter of 2022. While not the only funding channel for not-for-profit healthcare organizations,
the level of public debt issuance is a bellwether for the ambition of the sector’s capital formation strategies.
While health systems have plenty of reasons to be cautious about credit management right now, it’s important not to underrate the dangers of being too risk averse. As Jordahl puts it: “Retrenchment might be the right risk management choice in times of crisis, but once that crisis moderates that same strategy can quickly become a risk driver.”
The Gist: Given current market conditions, there are a host of good reasons why caution reigns among nonprofit health systems, but this current holding pattern for capital spending endangers their future competitiveness and potentially even their survival.
Nonprofit systems aren’t just at risk of losing a competitive edge to vertically integrated payers, whom the pandemic market treated far more kindly in financial terms, but also to for-profit national systems, like HCA and Tenet, who have been flywheeling strong quarterly results into revamped growth and expansion plans.
Health systems should be wary of becoming stuck on defense while the competition is running up the score.
Last week, California’s legislature passed a bill establishing the Distressed Hospital Loan Program, which will dole out $150M in interest-free emergency loans to struggling nonprofit hospitals in the state which meet specific eligibility criteria, including operating in an underserved area and serving a large share of Medicaid beneficiaries. A combination of state agencies will establish a specific methodology for selection, but hospitals that are part of a health system with more than two separately licensed hospital facilities will be ineligible.
Hospitals receiving loans must provide a plan for how they will use the loans to achieve financial sustainability, and must pay back the money within six years.
The Gist: With twenty percent of the state’s hospitals at risk of shuttering, California lawmakers are hoping to provide the most vulnerable hospitals an alternative to either closure or consolidation, an example other states may follow. But unlike the Paycheck Protection Program loans that shored up businesses through the pandemic’s initial disruption, the outlook for small, struggling, independent hospitals isn’t expected to improve in coming years, even if the economy recovers.
Whether these loans provide lifelines or merely serve as Band-Aids on an untenable situation will depend on whether recipient hospitals can use them to restructure their operating models to absorb increased labor costs amid stagnating volumes and commercial reimbursement.
If these loans aren’t used for transformation, they will only delay the inevitable: more closures, and more mergers to find shelter in scale.
The healthcare financings that came in the past couple of weeks generally did well. Maturities seemed to do better than put bonds, and it remains important to pay attention to couponing and how best to navigate a challenging yield curve. But these are episodic indicators rather than trends, given that the scale of issuance remains muted. Other capital markets—like real estate—are becoming more active and offer competitive funding and different credit considerations relative to debt market options. Credit management continues to be the main driver of low external capital formation, but those looking for outside funding should spend time up front considering the full array of channels and structures.
This Part of the Crisis
And now it’s official. After JPMorgan acquired First Republic Bank—with a whole lot of help from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—CEO Jamie Dimon declared, “this part of the crisis is over.” Not sure regional bank shareholders would agree, but from Mr. Dimon’s perspective the biggest bank got bigger, which made it a good day.
Last week the Federal Reserve raised rates another 25 basis points and the expectation (hope) seems to be that the Fed has reached the peak of its tightening cycle or will at least pause to see if constrictive forces like higher rates and regional bank balance sheet deflation slow activity enough to bring inflation back to the 2.0% Fed target. Assuming this is a pause point, it makes sense to check in on a few economic and market indicators.
Inflation is improving, although it remains well above the Fed’s 2.0% target range, and there are other indicators (like labor participation and unemployment) that have recovered some of the ground lost in 2020. But the weird part remains that this all seems quite civilized. To some, the Treasury curve spread continues to suggest a recession is looming, but in my neighborhood workers are still in short supply, restaurants are busy, and contractors are booked well into the future. Today’s ~3.36% 10-year Treasury rate is less than 100 basis points higher than the average since the start of the Fed interventionist era in 2008 and a whopping 257 basis points lower than the average since 1965. Think about how much capital has been raised in market environments much worse than now (including most of the modern-day healthcare inpatient infrastructure). Again, the main culprit in retarded capital formation is institutional credit management concerns rather than the funding environment.
The major fallout from the Fed’s recent anti-inflation efforts seems concentrated with financial intermediaries rather than consumers (or workers), and the financial intermediary stress the Fed is relying on to help curb economic activity is grounded in their own balance sheet management decisions rather than deteriorating loan portfolios. We’ve looked at this before, but it bears repeating that in the “great inflation” of the 1970s, the Chicago Fed’s Financial Conditions Index reached its highest recorded points (higher means tighter than average conditions) and in this most recent inflationary cycle, that same index has remained consistently accommodative. Can you wring inflation out of a system while retaining relatively accommodative financial conditions? Which begs the question of whether any Fed pause is more about shifting priorities: downgrading the inflation fight in favor of moderating the financial intermediary threat? We might be living a remake of the 1970s version of stubborn inflation, which means that all the attendant issues—rolling volatility across operations, financing, and investing—might be sticking around as well.
Meanwhile, somewhere out in the Atlantic the debt ceiling storm is forming. Who knows whether it will make landfall as a storm or a hurricane, but it does remind us that the operative portion of the Jamie Dimon quote noted above is this part of the crisis is over. The next part of the long saga that is about us climbing out of a deep fiscal and monetary hole will roll in and new variations of the same central challenge will emerge for healthcare leaders.
A Healthcare Makeover
Ken Kaufman has been advancing the idea that healthcare needs a “makeover” to align with post-COVID realities. Look for a piece from him on this soon, but the thesis is that reverting to a 2019 world isn’t going to happen, which means that restructuring is the only option. The most recent National Hospital Flash Report suggests improving margins, but they remain well below historical norms and the labor part of the expense equation is structurally higher. Where we are is not sustainable and waiting for a reversion is a rapidly decaying option.
My contribution to Ken’s argument is to reemphasize that balance sheet is the essential (only) bridge between here and a restructured sector and the journey is going to require very careful planning about how to size, position, and deploy liquidity, leverage, and investments. Of course, the central focus will be on how to reposition operations. But if organic cash generation remains anemic, the gap will be filled by either weakening the balance sheet (drawing down reserves, adding leverage, or adopting more aggressive asset allocation) or by partnering with organizations that have the necessary resources.
Organizations reach the point of greatest enterprise risk when the scale of operating challenges outstrips the scale of balance sheet resources. Missteps are manageable when the imbalance is the product of rapid growth but not when it is the result of deflating resources. If the core imperative is to remake operations, the co-equal imperative is continuously repositioning the balance sheet to carry you from here to whatever defines success.
Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health reported $88 million in operating income for the first quarter of 2023 on revenues of $3.8 billion.
Such figures compared with $95 million operating income on $3.6 billion of revenues in the same period last year.
The positive first-quarter operating income figure builds on a 2022 operating income of $278 million. Overall income for the first quarter totaled $220 million compared with a $166 million loss in the same period in 2022.
Sutter Health, which is undergoing some executive management changes, employs 51,000 people and operates 282 care facilities.
Here are 24 health systems with strong operational metrics and solid financial positions, according to reports from credit rating agencies Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global in 2023.
Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Health system names were compiled from credit rating reports.
1. Atrium Health has an ‘AA-‘ and stable outlook with S&P Global. The Charlotte, N.C.-based system’s rating reflects a robust financial profile, growing geographic diversity and expectations that management will continue to deploy capital with discipline.
2. Berkshire Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Pittsfield, Mass.-based system has a strong financial profile, solid liquidity and modest leverage, according to Fitch.
3. CaroMont Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with S&P Global. The Gastonia, N.C.-based system has a healthy financial profile and robust market share in a competitive region.
4. CentraCare has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The St. Cloud, Minn.-based system has a leading market position, and its management’s focus on addressing workforce pressures, patient access and capacity constraints will improve operating margins over the medium term, Fitch said.
5. Children’s Minnesota has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Minneapolis-based system’s broad reach within the region continues to support long-term sustainability as a market leader and preferred provider for children’s health care, Fitch said.
6. Cone Health has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The rating reflects the expectation that the Greensboro, N.C.-based system will gradually return to stronger results in the medium term, the rating agency said.
7. El Camino Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Mountain View, Calif.-based system has a history of generating double-digit operating EBITDA margins, driven by a solid market position that features strong demographics and a very healthy payer mix, Fitch said.
8. Harris Health System has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Houston-based system has a “very strong” revenue defensibility, primarily based on the district’s significant taxing margin that provides support for operations and debt service, Fitch said.
9. Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Newport Beach, Calif.-based system’s rating is supported by a leading market position in its immediate area and very strong financial profile, Fitch said.
10. Inspira Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Mullica Hill, N.J.-based system’s rating reflects its leading market position in a stable service area and a large medical staff supported by a growing residency program, Fitch said.
11. Mayo Clinic has an “Aa2” rating and stable outlook with Moody’s. The Rochester, Minn.-based system’s credit profile characterized by its excellent reputations for clinical services, research and education, Moody’s said.
12. McLaren Health Care has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Grand Blanc, Mich.-based system has a leading market position over a broad service area covering much of Michigan and a track-record of profitability despite sector-wide market challenges in recent years, Fitch said.
13. Novant Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based system has a highly competitive market share in three separate North Carolina markets, Fitch said, including a leading position in Winston-Salem (46.8 percent) and second only to Atrium Health in the Charlotte area.
14. NYC Health + Hospitals has an “AA-” rating with Fitch. The New York City system is the largest municipal health system in the country, serving more than 1 million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient locations across the city, including 11 hospitals, and employs more than 43,000 people.
15. Orlando (Fla.) Health has an “AA-” and stable outlook with Fitch. The system’s upgrade from “A+” reflects the continued strength of the health system’s operating performance, growth in unrestricted liquidity and excellent market position in a demographically favorable market, Fitch said.
16. Rush System for Health has an “AA-” and stable outlook with Fitch. The Chicago-based system has a strong financial profile despite ongoing labor issues and inflationary pressures, Fitch said.
17. Saint Francis Healthcare System has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Cape Girardeau, Mo.-based system enjoys robust operational performance and a strong local market share as well as manageable capital plans, Fitch said.
18. Salem (Ore.) Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The system has a “very strong” financial profile and a leading market share position, Fitch said.
19. Stanford Health Care has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based system’s rating is supported by its extensive clinical reach in the greater San Francisco and Central Valley regions and nationwide/worldwide destination position for extremely high-acuity services, Fitch said.
20. SSM Health has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The St. Louis-based system has a strong financial profile, multi-state presence and scale, with solid revenue diversity, Fitch said.
21. UCHealth has an “AA” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Aurora, Colo.-based system’s margins are expected to remain robust, and the operating risk assessment remains strong, Fitch said.
22. University of Kansas Health System has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with S&P Global. The Kansas City-based system has a solid market presence, good financial profile and solid management team, though some balance sheet figures remain relatively weak to peers, the rating agency said.
23. WellSpan Health has an “Aa3” rating and stable outlook with Moody’s. The York, Pa.-based system has a distinctly leading market position across several contiguous counties in central Pennsylvania, and management’s financial stewardship and savings initiatives will continue to support sound operating cash flow margins when compared to peers, Moody’s said.
24. Willis-Knighton Health System has an “AA-” rating and stable outlook with Fitch. The Shreveport, La.-based system has a “dominant inpatient market position” and is well positioned to manage operating pressures, Fitch said.
For the first time in recent history, we saw all three functions of the not-for-profit healthcare system’s financial structure suffer significant and sustained dislocation over the course of the year 2022 (Figure above).
The headwinds disrupting these functions are carrying over into 2023, and it is uncertain how long they will continue to erode the operating and financial performance of not-for-profit hospitals and health systems.
The Operating Function is challenged by elevated expenses, uncertain recovery of service volumes, and an escalating and diversified competitive environment.
The Finance Function is challenged by a more difficult credit environment (all three rating agencies
now have a negative perspective on the not-forprofit healthcare sector), rising rates for debt, and a diminished investor appetite for new healthcare debt issuance. Total healthcare debt issuance in 2022 was $28 billion, down sharply from a trailing two-year average of $46 billion.
The Investment Function is challenged by volatility and heightened risk in markets concerned with the Federal Reserve’s tightening of monetary policy and the prospect of a recession. The S&P 500—a major stock index—was down almost 20% in 2022. Investments had served as a “resiliency anchor” during the first two years of the pandemic; their ability to continue to serve that function is now in question.
A significant factor in Operating Function challenges is labor: both increases in the cost of labor and staffing shortages that are forcing many organizations to run at less than full capacity. In Kaufman Hall’s 2022 State of Healthcare Performance Improvement Survey, for example, 67% of respondents had seen year-over-year increases of more than 10% for clinical staff wages, and 66% reported that they had run their facilities at less-than-full capacity because of staffing shortages.
These are long-term challenges,
dependent in part on increasing the pipeline of new talent entering healthcare professions, and they will not be quickly resolved. Recovery of returns from the Investment Function is similarly uncertain. Ideally, not-for-profit health systems can maintain a one-way flow of funds into the Investment Function, continuing to build the basis that generates returns. Organizations must now contemplate flows in the other direction to access
funds needed to cover operating losses, which in many cases would involve selling invested assets at a loss in a down market and reducing the basis available to generate returns when markets recover.
The current situation demonstrates why financial reserves are so important:
many not-for-profit hospitals and health systems will have to rely on them to cover losses until they can reach a point where operations and markets have stabilized, or they have been able to adjust their business to a new, lower margin environment. As noted above, relief funding and the MAAP program helped bolster financial reserves after the initial shock of the pandemic. As the impact of relief funding wanes and organizations repay remaining balances under the MAAP program, Days Cash on Hand has begun to shrink, and the need to cover operating losses is hastening this decline. From its highest
point in 2021, Days Cash on Hand had decreased, as of September 2022, by:
29% at the 75th percentile, declining from 302 to 216 DCOH (a drop of 86 days)
28% at the 50th percentile, declining from 202 to 147 DCOH (a drop of 55 days)
49% at the 25th percentile, declining from 67 to 34 DCOH (a drop of 33 days)
Financial reserves are playing the role for which they were intended; the only question is whether enough not-for-profit hospitals and health systems have built sufficient reserves to carry them through what is likely to be a protracted period of recovery from the pandemic.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
All three functions of the not-for-profit healthcare system’s financial structure—operations, finance, and investments—suffered significant and sustained dislocation over the course of 2022.
These headwinds will continue to challenge not-forprofit
hospitals and health systems well into 2023.
Days Cash on Hand is showing a steady decline, as the impact of relief funding recedes and the need to cover operating losses persists.
Financial reserves are playing a critical role in covering operating losses as hospitals and health systems struggle to stabilize their operational and financial performance.
Conclusion
Not-for-profit hospitals and health systems serve many community needs. They provide patients access to healthcare when and where they need it. They invest in new technologies and treatments that offer patients and their families lifesaving advances in care. They offer career opportunities to a broad range of highly skilled professionals, supporting the economic health of the communities they serve.
These services and investments are expensive and cannot be covered solely by the revenue received from providing care to patients.
Strong financial reserves are the foundation of good financial stewardship for not-for-profit hospitals and health systems.
Financial reserves help fund needed investments in facilities and technology, improve an organization’s debt capacity, enable better access to capital at more affordable interest rates, and provide a critical resource to meet expenses when organizations need to bridge periods of operational disruption or financial distress. Many hospitals and health systems today are relying on the strength of their reserves to navigate a difficult
environment; without these reserves, they would not be able to meet their expenses and would be at risk of closure.
Financial reserves, in other words, are serving the very purpose for which they are intended—ensuring that hospitals and health systems can continue to serve their communities in the face of challenging operational and financial headwinds.
When these headwinds have subsided, rebuilding these reserves should be a top priority to ensure that our not-for-profit hospitals and health systems can remain a vital resource for the communities they serve.
According to a new report from the American Hospital Association (AHA), hospitals and health systems are facing significant financial pressures from rising expenses, including for labor, drugs, medical supplies and more. And without increased government support, the organization warns that patients’ access to care could be at risk.
Hospitals continue to see expenses grow, negative margins
In the report, AHA writes that several factors, including historic inflation and critical workforce shortages leading to a reliance on contract labor, led to “2022 being the most financially challenging year for hospitals since the pandemic began.”
According to data from Syntellis Performance Solutions, overall hospital expenses increased by 17.5% between 2019 and 2022 — more than double the increases in Medicare reimbursements during the same time. Between 2019 and 2022, Medicare reimbursement only grew by 7.5%.
With expenses significantly outpacing reimbursement, hospital margins have been consistently negative over the last year. In fact, AHA noted that “over half of hospitals ended 2022 operating at a financial loss — an unsustainable situation for any organization in any sector, let alone hospitals.”
So far, this trend has continued into 2023, with hospitals reporting negative median operating margins in both January and February.
A recent analysis also found that the first quarter of 2023 had the largest number of bond defaults among hospitals in over 10 years.
Between 2019, and 2022 hospital labor expenses increased by 20.8%, a rise that was largely driven by a growing reliance on contract labor to fill in workforce gaps during the pandemic. Even after accounting for an increase in patient acuity, labor expenses per patient increased by 24.7%.
Compared to pre-pandemic levels, hospitals saw a 56.8% increase in the rates they were charged for contract employees in 2022. Overall, hospitals’ contract labor expenses increased by a “staggering” 257.9% in 2022 compared to 2019 levels.
A sharp rise in inflation in recent months has also led to a significant increase in hospitals’ non-labor expenses, particularly for drugs and medical expenses. According to a report by Kaufman Hall, just non-labor expenses would lead to a $49 billion one-year expense increase for hospitals and health systems.
Since 2019, non-labor expenses have grown 16.6% per patient. Hospitals’ expenses for drugs and medical supplies/equipment have seen similar increases per patient at 19.7% and 18.5%, respectively. Costs of laboratory services (27.1%), emergency services (31.9%), and purchased services, including IT and food and nutrition services, (18%) have also increased significantly per patient.
Outside of labor and non-labor expenses, AHA writes that policies from health insurers have also contributed to significant burden among hospital staff and increased administrative costs. Currently, administrative costs account for up to 31% of total healthcare spending — of which, billing and insurance makes up 82%.
With the COVID-19 public health emergency ending on May 11, several important hospital waivers and flexibilities will soon end, and “[t]he downstream effects of this will be wide-ranging as hospitals will be faced with a set of additional challenges,” AHA writes.
“Rising costs for drugs, supplies, and labor coupled with sicker patients, longer hospital stays, and government reimbursement rates that do not come close to covering the costs of caring for patients have created a dire situation for hospitals and health systems,” said AHA president and CEO Rick Pollack.
“This is not just a financial problem; it is an access problem.
When healthcare providers cannot afford the tools and teams they need to care for patients, they will be forced to make hard choices and the people who will be impacted the most are patients. We can’t let that happen. Congress and others must act to preserve the care our nation needs and depend on.”
To address these financial challenges and ensure that hospitals are able to continue caring for patients, AHA has suggested several actions Congress could take to support hospitals going forward, including:
Enacting policies to support efforts to boost the healthcare workforce and ensure of future pipeline of professionals to combat longstanding labor shortages
Rejecting attempts to cut Medicare or Medicaid payments to hospitals, which could further reduce patients’ access to care
Encouraging CMS to use its “special exceptions and adjustments” to make retrospective adjustments to account for differences between what was implemented for fiscal year 2022 and what is currently projected
Creating a special statutory designation and providing additional support to hospitals that serve historically marginalized communities
“As the hospital field maintains its commitment to care in the face of significant challenges, policymakers must step up and help protect the health and well-being of our nation by ensuring America has strong hospitals and health systems,” AHA writes.
On today’s episode of Gist Healthcare Daily, Kaufman Hall co-founder and Chair Ken Kaufman joins the podcast to discuss his recent blog that examines Ford Motor Company’s decision to stop producing internal-combustion sedans, and talk about whether there are parallels for health system leaders to ponder about whether their traditional strategies are beginning to age out.
A number of healthcare and hospital systems detailed their levels of debt when reporting recent financial results. Here is a summary of some of those systems’ reports, including debt totals calculated by ratings agencies:
Augusta, Ga.-based AU Health, which comprises a 478-bed adult hospital and 154-bed children’s hospital and serves as the academic medical center for the Medical College of Georgia, had approximately $327 million of debt in fiscal 2022. The system, which became affiliated with Atlanta-based Wellstar Health System on March 31, was downgraded to “B2” from “Ba3” with a negative outlook, Moody’s said March 23.
Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health had long-term debt of $3.6 billion as of Dec. 31. Overall income for the 33-hospital system in 2022 totaled $2.6 billion, boosted by the affiliation effective April 1 of SCL Health, which contributed $4 billion.
Credit rating agency Moody’s is revising Springfield Ill.-based Memorial Health System‘s outlook from stable to negative as the health system ended fiscal year 2022 with $343 million in outstanding debt. Moody’s expects Memorial to stabilize in 2023 but not reach historical levels until 2025, according to the March 24 report.
New York City-based NYU Langone Hospitals, which has total debt outstanding of approximately $3.1 billion, had its outlook revised to positive from stable amid a “very good operating performance” that has helped lead to improved days of cash on hand, Moody’s said. NYU Langone consists of five inpatient locations in New York City and on Long Island as well as numerous ambulatory facilities in the five boroughs, Long Island, New Jersey and Florida.
Bellevue, Wash.-based Overlake Hospital Medical Center was downgraded on a series of bonds as the 310-bed hospital faces ongoing labor and inflationary challenges and the possibility of not meeting its debt coverage requirements, Moody’s said March 9. The hospital, which also operates several outpatient clinics and physician offices in its service area, has $295 million of outstanding debt.
Renton, Wash.-based Providence, has about $7.4 billion worth of debt. The 51-hospital system, which reported a fiscal 2022 operating loss of $1.7 billion, was downgraded as it continues to deal with ongoing operational challenges, Fitch Ratings said March 17, the first of three downgrades Providence suffered in the space of weeks. The Fitch downgrade to “A” from “A+” applies both to the system’s default rating and on the $7.4 billion in debt.
Lansing, Mich.-based Sparrow Health had long-term debt of $353.5 million as of Dec. 31, S&P Global said. Sparrow Health has had a series of bonds it holds placed on credit watch amid concern over the eventual outcome of a planned merger with Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health, S&P Global said Feb. 16. The $7 billion merger was eventually approved April 3.
St. Louis-based SSM Health, which had approximately $2.6 billion of total debt outstanding at the end of fiscal 2022, reported an operating loss of $248.9 million after its expenses increased 7.6 percent over the previous year. SSM Health had an “AA-” rating affirmed on a series of bonds it holds as the 23-hospital system dipped in operating income in fiscal 2022 after “several years of consistently solid performance,” according to a March 24 report from Fitch Ratings.
Philadelphia-based Temple University Health had $395.6 million long-term debt as of Dec. 31. The system’s outlook was revised to stable from positive following recent results S&P Global described as “very challenged” and “deeply negative.” The referenced results are interim fiscal 2023 figures that contrast significantly with expectations, S&P said March 15. Temple Health is in danger of not meeting debt coverage requirements as a result.
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcarereported $14.9 billion of long-term debt when it revealed net income of $410 million for the year Feb. 9. Tenet had its default rating affirmed at “B+” as the 61-hospital system’s operating income remains resilient in the face of industry pressures and debt levels stay manageable, Fitch Ratings said March 27.
HENRY KOTULA 