The hospital industry's annual Medicare underpayment claim
It’s almost Summer time, which means that it’s almost time for the American Hospital Association to start shouting about how Medicare doesn’t pay enough to cover services. They’ll say that to justify ripping off commercially insured patients.
As a reminder, the argument that Medicare reimbursements are insufficient is misleading.
Preston Alexander (in his excellent newsletter) put the NASHP | National Academy for State Health Policy data into a handy chart to show the operating profit 4,546 hospitals.
Medicaid operating profit
($20,481,466,509)
Medicare operating profit
$2,594,558,689
Commercial operating profit
$235,114,349,968
Total operating profit
$192,805,538,119
Hospitals at large are profitable on Medicare services. Medicaid under reimburses, but we commercial patients are being fleeced.
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Originally posted on LinkedIn, where the discussion and source links live in the comments.