Photo | Grant Welker
UMass Medical School, left, and UMass Memorial Medical Center's University Campus
September 27, 2019
Saint Vincent profits $72M, UMass Memorial loses $19M
Photo | Grant Welker
Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester
By Grant Welker
Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester continues to not only treat patients in Central Massachusetts but drive major profits to its Dallas-based owner.
Saint Vincent brought in $72.2 million in profit in fiscal 2018, according to hospital financial data released Friday, in stark contrast to Worcester rival UMass Memorial Medical Center, whose area campuses lost $19.3 million.
UMass Memorial's Worcester campuses profited $1.7 million, but the system's physician group had a $52.4-million loss in fiscal 2018, offsetting any gains elsewhere, according to a report by the Massachusetts Center for Health Information & Analysis, an independent state agency monitoring the state's hospitals, including their finances.
UMass Memorial Health Care's HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital lost $13.7 million, and Marlborough Hospital lost $100,000. The UMass Memorial system, traditionally the largest employer in Central Massachusetts, recorded a $19.3-million loss over all.
While Saint Vincent has regularly rung up annual profits in the tens of millions, the nonprofit UMass Memorial has been less consistent.
The UMass Memorial system recorded profits of $68.1 million in fiscal 2016 and $63.1 million in fiscal 2017, according to the Center for Health Information & Analysis. At UMass' Worcester campuses in particular, profits were $47.1 million and $21.9 million in those years, respectively.
Across Massachusetts for fiscal 2018, acute care hospitals had a median margin of 4.5%, a 1.3 percentage-point increase from the prior fiscal year. Most hospitals had positive margins — especially prominent Boston institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute — while system-affiliated physician organizations typically posted losses.
Hospital finances can often be affected by patients' insurance type, or a lack of insurance, which leave hospitals with different reimbursement rates for the services they provide. Hospitals where 63% or more of patients have public insurance, such as Medicaid and Medicare, are considered to have high rates of those patients.
UMass Memorial's campuses in Worcester, Clinton and Marlborough meet that criteria, as does Saint Vincent, MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, and Harrington Hospital in Southbridge.
In Central Massachusetts, hospital systems were generally less profitable than counterparts elsewhere in the state in 2018.
Harrington Hospital had a $12.1-million profit, but its physician services unit posted an equal loss, bringing the system to a operating margin loss of 2.7% for the year.
Heywood Hospital in Gardner had $2.9 million in profits, and sister facility Athol Hospital a $1.2-million profit. Both were also largely offset by Heywood Medical Group's $5.5-million loss.
Elsewhere, Milford Regional Medical Center posted an $8.5-million profit erased by an $8.9-million loss in its physicians group. Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer lost $1.1 million, a small part of its parent company Steward Health Care's $271.1-million loss on its nine Massachusetts hospitals and its physician network.
MetroWest Medical Center, which like Saint Vincent is owned by Tenet Healthcare, recorded a $4.8-million profit.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said UMass Memorial Medical Center's Worcester campuses lost $1.7 million. They profited $1.7 million.
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Anonymous
September 27, 2019
Meanwhile they are cutting staff, not filling positions, departments are being asked to flex and will not fill openings due to call ins...winder how they're saving money. What a joke.
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