Revenue across hospital-owned and physician-owned centers rose in 2020-21 but performance varied, with specific declines from 2019 to 2021, according to a Medical Group Management Association report. In addition, declining revenue in some areas was accompanied by significantly higher operating expenses.
The report broke centers down into six areas: hospital-owned and physician-owned primary care, surgical and nonsurgical operations.
Although revenue increased across all six data points in 2020-21, it was down $74,844 per full-time equivalent physician at physician-owned primary care facilities and $71,480 down per FTE physician at physician-owned surgical centers. All three hospital-owned types saw their revenue increase over the three-year period.
In addition, all three location types at physician-owned facilities saw total patient encounters decline from 2019 to 2021, while only hospital-owned primary care centers also saw such encounters decline, though less severely. Hospital-owned facility encounters for surgical and nonsurgical reasons rose 3.4 percent and 22.55 percent respectively, the report said.
Revenue issues were complicated by significantly higher operating costs caused by inflationary pressures, staffing shortages and supply chain disruption.
The complete MGMA report can be found here.