During the first quarter of 2024, hospitals and health systems across the nation experienced a rise in payments that were either delayed or missing, a report from Strata Decision Technology found.
The rise was largely due to a significant disruption in payment processing services, according to the report which integrated financial, operational and claims information sourced from hospitals, health systems and various other healthcare entities nationwide in order to assess performance trends.
Additionally, the report found that depending on the size of the hospital, the gap between expected and actual revenue ranged from 16.5% to 17.9% for the first three months of 2024.
Large hospitals with operating expenses exceeding $2.5 billion experienced the most significant impacts in terms of percentage, according to the report. These hospitals saw a starting shortfall of 12.2% for services provided in January, which then increased to 20.3% in February and peaked at 21.1% in March, averaging 17.9% over the three-month period.
According to Strata, this indicates a substantial financial challenge for these institutions, particularly considering that payments can take several weeks to process after the date of service.
Smaller hospitals with less than $500 million yearly operating costs were the next most affected group. On average, they had a 17.1% deficit for the quarter. This gap grew from 12% in January to 20.4% by March.