hospitalist service profitability?

[Conan]

I work as a hospitalist for a decentralized network of non-profit clinics that has a mix of insured and uninsured patients from a large rual area. I see the network's patients in the hospital and work with attendings and other PA/NPs who mostly split their time between urgent care, clinic, and the hospital. Our medical director has recently told the hospitalist group that we are not making a profit and in fact are losing a signficant amount of money each year.

 

I thought that, all things considered, it was actually unusual for hospitalist groups to earn a profit. Is this true? The medical director has also told me that this is not due to billing but rather because we get such a small amount reimbursed from Medicare/Medicaid regardless of our documentation/billing.

 

I haven't been able to find much information about this on-line.

 

Does your group make a profit?

 

Any information or resources about this (from the MD/DO or PA/NP perspective) would be welcome ~ thanks

[Conan]

I work as a hospitalist for a decentralized network of non-profit clinics that has a mix of insured and uninsured patients from a large rual area. I see the network's patients in the hospital and work with attendings and other PA/NPs who mostly split their time between urgent care, clinic, and the hospital. Our medical director has recently told the hospitalist group that we are not making a profit and in fact are losing a signficant amount of money each year.

 

I thought that, all things considered, it was actually unusual for hospitalist groups to earn a profit. Is this true? The medical director has also told me that this is not due to billing but rather because we get such a small amount reimbursed from Medicare/Medicaid regardless of our documentation/billing.

 

I haven't been able to find much information about this on-line.

 

Does your group make a profit?

 

Any information or resources about this (from the MD/DO or PA/NP perspective) would be welcome ~ thanks

[mkjpa]

Average expected collections from your average IM-MD hospitalist will not cover his salary based on MGMA data and wrvu calculations. So, from that standpoint, hospitalists are not profitable. However, that is only one small part of the financial picture - if that was all there was to it we would not exist. We are hired not for the revenue we generate, but usually from the expected reduction in hospital cost.