Hospitals in the Washington region are suffering from the recession just like other businesses, with many facing budget shortfalls and have made or are considering job cuts.
The Maryland Hospital Association said in a report released on Thursday that income has fallen while expenses have risen for a lot of the state's 58 hospitals. According to the report, 34 hospitals in Maryland lost a combined $466 million during the last quarter of last year.
Virginia facilities are also reporting shortfalls. D.C. hospitals have yet to report results for the last quarter of 2008. However, Robert A. Malson, chief executive officer of the District of Columbia Hospital Association, said they, too, are affected by the recession.
Hospital officials in the three jurisdictions said they are working on cutting costs. Many have already made cuts.
Maryland hospitals reported a 13.5 percent decline in total margins, which measure income from all sources, including investments, for the last quarter of 2008.
Chris Bailey, senior vice president at the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, said income has fallen 24 percent, not counting investment losses. Nationally, hospitals reported a 7.8 percent decline in total margins during the quarter, the American Hospital Association reported.
"I do think there's a misperception that things are OK, when in fact they're not," said Carmela Coyle, president of the Maryland Hospital Association.
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In Maryland, the gap in operating expenses -- the difference between what is spent and what is earned on patient care -- shrank to 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, from 2.4 percent in the third.
Coyle called the trend troubling. That's because it means hospitals' financial cushion is shrinking at a time when more people are going to emergency rooms for care because they have lost their health insurance.
In Virginia, Bailey said hospitals' "bad debts" owed by people who fail to pay their bills rose 20 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period in 2007.
