Not a good idea:
"Public payer cutbacks behind Partners’ income decline" by Robert Weisman | Globe Staff, August 09, 2013
Third-quarter operating income fell 16 percent at Partners HealthCare System, the state’s largest hospital and doctors organization, amid intensifying cutbacks from public payers such as Medicaid and Medicare, the government insurance programs for low-income residents and senior citizens....
Partners on Friday posted operating income of $97.4 million for the three months ending June 30, compared with $116 million a year ago....
While operating income dropped, third-quarter net income for Partners, which owns Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals in Boston, climbed 17 percent to $69.4 million from $59.1 million last year. That’s because its nonoperating loss on investments narrowed to $27.9 million in the most recent quarter from $56.8 million a year earlier.
What is a healthcare company doing investing(?) in anything?
Partners has been losing money in recent years on its purchases of swaps — derivatives used to bet on the direction of interest rates. Investments in those complicated financial instruments were made as a hedge against potential declines in stocks, bonds, and other holdings in its portfolio.
Oh, NO!!
The HEALTHCARE INDU$TRY has simply become ANOTHER STRAW for WALL STREET!!
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"Net income rises for Partners HealthCare System; Earnings for second quarter edge up; but profit margin closes" by Robert Weisman | Globe Staff, May 17, 2013
Earnings edged up in the second quarter despite narrowing profit margins at Partners HealthCare System, aided partly by a state government decision to drop an assessment on Partners’ newly acquired health insurance division, Neighborhood Health Plan.
WTF? If "earnings" edged up how can "profit margins" be narrowing?
Net income totaled $133.2 million in the three months ended March 31 for Boston-based Partners, which runs Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, an increase of 0.7 percent from the $132.2 million earned in the same period last year.
Operating income jumped nearly eightfold to $40.8 million in the most recent quarter, from $5.3 million last year, when the hospital and doctors organization took a $110 million accounting charge to write off the value of computer and software systems it was replacing.
At the same time, second-quarter income from investments slipped to $92.3 million from $126.8 million a year earlier as falling interest rates cut into the value of financial instruments known as “swaps” that Partners has been using as hedges in its investment portfolio....
Who wants a health care company hedging anything?
“We live on razor-thin margins,” said Peter K. Markell, chief financial officer and treasurer at Partners. “When you get squeezed in the rate of payment, that drops right to the bottom line.”
If $133 million can be considered a razor. I gue$$ it is in some circles.
Research revenue, meanwhile, continued to grow even as Partners hospital labs braced for federal research cuts that haven’t yet taken effect.
Looking forward, Markell said, Partners would seek to boost revenue, partly by stepping up the commercialization of its medical research, in the face of falling margins.
“We’re looking at how we can create new revenue sources,” he said, “and we’re putting a lot of attention on managing costs.”
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Now you know why you are paying 3x the cost for equal care:
"Partners hospitals, doctors top health-payment list; State analysis affirms stature" by Liz Kowalczyk | Globe Staff, August 14, 2013
Nearly one-third of all the money that Massachusetts insurers spent on acute hospital care last year went to Partners HealthCare, according to a new Patrick administration analysis that underscores the dominance of the state’s largest medical provider.
I will under$core that, too.
In addition, Partners-affiliated doctors received 25 percent of the money paid to physicians in 2011. In both cases, Partners received two to three times as much as the providers receiving the next most in payments.
It's no mystery, doc.
The findings are part of the first annual report on the Massachusetts health care market, which was required by the 2012 health care cost-control law. The state planned to release the report Wednesday and provided a draft copy to the Globe.
Another pair of partners.
Partners, which received 31 percent of hospital payments, said the amount reflects the fact that it treats far more patients than any other provider in the state, and executives said they are working aggressively to reduce their costs.
The analysis will help regulators and lawmakers decide how to best control medical costs, which have been soaring over the past decade. Between 2009 and 2011, health insurance premiums rose by 9.7 percent, the report found. At the same time, insurance benefits fell by 5 percent.
WTF?!?!
One potential problem that state leaders are monitoring closely is increased consolidation among hospitals and doctors. Providers argue that by merging they can be more efficient, but larger groups often have the leverage to demand higher prices from insurers.
Oh, you don't say?
Well, we have a society based on such benevolence, so... I think we better go get a check up.
Partners was formed in 1994 by the Harvard teaching hospitals Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, and now includes 10 hospitals and 6,000 doctors. It has become not only the most prestigious health care system in the state but also one of the most expensive.
Overall, 80 percent of insurance payments went to the providers that charge the highest prices, including Partners, Berkshire Health Systems, and Atrius Health, making it clear that cutting spending on medical care will depend in part on controlling payments to these systems, the report said. The newly formed Center for Health Information and Analysis prepared the report. Its executive director, Aron Boros, was not available for comment Tuesday....
Partners recently completed a merger with Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton and is trying to add South Shore Hospital in Weymouth to the organization. The Health Policy Commission is reviewing the merger. So is the US Justice Department’s Antitrust Division in partnership with the state attorney general’s office, which are seeking to gauge whether it would be anticompetitive....
“One of the big issues is, when Partners gets hold of an entity, it also extracts bigger prices.’’
Partners spokesman Rich Copp said the company is moving to control medical expenses, including both the price and volume of services.
Given that “more than 1.5 million patients each year choose to receive their care at a Partners hospital or from a Partners physician’’— representing about a quarter of the Massachusetts population — the report’s findings are not surprising, he said....
The Globe must have amnesia; either that, or they turned off their spotlight.
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Did I also mention they have tax-exempt status?
"State health insurers post mixed financial results" by Robert Weisman | Globe Staff, May 15, 2013
The state’s biggest health insurers reported mixed first-quarter financial results Wednesday, with two notching income gains, one registering lower earnings, and one posting a loss....
First-quarter operating earnings are typically weak for health insurers because that’s when many people decide to go ahead with elective surgeries and other procedures they postponed during the holidays. But that downturn was offset by investment income at most of the plans.
Yeah, never mind those losses above.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care turned in the strongest quarterly results, reporting its net income rose 150 percent to $8.5 million from $3.4 million in the same period last year....
Earnings climbed 11.7 percent to $5.7 million during the January-to-March period at Tufts Health Plan, which recorded net income of $5.1 million for the corresponding period in 2012.
Tufts, based in Watertown, said it was managing its costs better and ringing up profits in its commercial and Medicare businesses, though the insurer has been losing money in the Medicaid insurance market it entered in 2011 after acquiring Network Health in Medford.
The mixed messages making you sick?
First-quarter net income slipped 6 percent to $28 million from $29.8 million a year earlier, at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer. While lower bond yields shaved $1.7 million off investment income, it was “a good, normal quarter” overall for the Boston-based plan, according to Allen Maltz, chief financial officer for Blue Cross.
The quarter wasn’t as kind to Fallon Community Health Plan. The company absorbed a $200,000 net loss, down from $4.2 million in net income a year ago. The Worcester-based insurer said the results were consistent with expectations, noting that it invested heavily in information technology — including new business, data storage, and reporting systems — during the quarter.
Moving forward, executives at the health insurers said they are monitoring changes in the underlying “medical trend” — a mix of how much health care services are used and the cost of each visit, test, and procedure. So far this year, they said, medical costs have gone up less than anticipated.
Translation: they are already rationing health care.
“We’ve benefited from a relatively low [medical] trend environment, but I don’t think that will last too long,” said Umesh Kurpad, chief financial officer at Tufts Health Plan. Over the next 12 months, he said, costs associated with insurance offered through employers will likely start to trend upward.
Maltz noted that the economic recovery is still a work in progress, so it’s not yet clear how improving conditions will affect insurance costs.
“We haven’t really seen what typically happens in a recovery, which is people coming back to work or feeling their jobs are stable and starting to use their health care benefits,” he said. “I expect to see that, but I haven’t seen it yet.”
That's because it's not there!
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I've always been bothered that student loan and health articles so often appear in the bu$ine$$ section of my paper. $ays more than I ever could.
Related: Profits up at Mass. health insurers
Premiums up, executive payouts rise? Think there is a connection, doc?
