Not-For-Profit Hospitals Feel Financial Squeeze

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Sinks Not-For-Profit Hospitals' Operating Margins
While COVID-19 relief measures boosted not-for-profit hospitals' cash on hand, the pandemic sunk their median operating margin, according to a new report. Not-for-profit hospitals recorded a median operating margin of 0.5% and operating cash flow margin of 6.7% in fiscal 2020, which were down 2.4% and 8.4% respectively year over year, according to Moody's Investors Service preliminary median report that gathered data from June 30 and Sept. 30 of last year. Medicare advanced payments, deferral of payroll taxes, suspension of retirement contributions and deferral of capital spending led to substantially higher median days cash on hand, which rose from 44 days to 246.9 days. (Kacik, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 'Survival Mode' Sparking New Hospital Challenges
Hospitals are struggling with a new set of problems because they have been operating in "survival mode" for the past year, according to a report from HHS' Office of Inspector General released on Tuesday. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic worsened longstanding challenges in healthcare delivery, access and health outcomes, it has also created new issues as health systems try to restart routine hospital care. Hospitals reported that they continue to suffer from staffing shortages that affect patient care and that exhaustion and trauma have taken a toll on staff's mental health, HHS OIG said. They're also dealing with various problems related to vaccine distribution and vaccine hesitancy among their staff and communities. (Brady, 3/25)

KHN: ‘Incredibly Concerning’ Lawsuit Threatens No-Charge Preventive Care For Millions
With a challenge to the Affordable Care Act still pending at the Supreme Court, conservatives are continuing to launch legal attacks on the law, including a case in which a Texas federal judge seems open to ending the requirement that most Americans must receive preventive services like mammograms free of charge. Businesses and individuals challenging the ACA’s first-dollar coverage mandate for preventive services have legal standing and legitimate constitutional and statutory grounds to proceed with their lawsuit to overturn it, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled late last month in Fort Worth. O’Connor, who previously found the entire ACA to be unconstitutional, denied most of the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case, Kelley v. Azar. (Meyer, 3/26)

KHN: Her Doctor’s Office Moved One Floor Up. Her Bill Was 10 Times Higher
Kyunghee Lee’s right hand hurts all the time.She spent decades running a family dry cleaning store outside Cleveland after emigrating from South Korea 40 years ago. She still freelances as a seamstress, although work has slowed amid the covid-19 pandemic. While Lee likes to treat her arthritis with home remedies, each year the pain in the knuckles of her right middle finger and ring finger increases until they hurt too much to touch. So about once a year she goes to see a rheumatologist, who administers a pain-relieving injection of a steroid in the joints of those fingers. (Weber, 3/26)

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Roll Call: Surgeon Who Treated Giffords After Shooting Launches Bid For House Seat
As the trauma surgeon who treated former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords after a gunman shot her and 18 others outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store, Randy Friese has more firsthand experience than most with mass shootings. Friese was thinking about that now-infamous January 2011 day on Thursday, when he announced plans to run for Congress in a seat that includes parts of Tucson. “I feel the pain and the sorrow and the loss and the grief all over again,” he said in an interview. “There’s this personal sense of, I should be doing more, I should accomplish more.” (Akin, 3/25)