This data note examines the financial performance of the three largest for-profit hospital systems in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. All three health systems have had positive operating margins that have exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the ma…
An important new study offers much-needed data to inform older Americans of the risks and benefits they must weigh when facing major surgery.
Attorney General Rob Bonta handily won election on a progressive, social justice platform. He’s already begun with an inquiry into hospital software programs that might bake in racial discrimination.
Hospitals strike deals with financing companies, generating profits for lenders, and more debt for patients.
Voters in Inglewood were poised to approve a union-backed $25 minimum wage for workers at private hospitals and facilities, while Duarte voters rejected it.
A new investigation by KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN) lays bare the sizeable efforts by private equity investors to take over large and lucrative parts of the U.S health care system in recent years. KHN found that private equity firms have invested nea…
This analysis examines the cost of COVID-19 treatment for inpatient care among people with health coverage through large employers. It finds that in 2020, COVID-19 hospitalizations cost an average of $41,611, including an average out-of-pocket payment …
The nation’s largest private health system, HCA Healthcare, has faced years of scrutiny over its share of emergency room patients who are admitted to the hospital. And now U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey, is calling for a federal investigation, prompting an escalating defense by the hospital system, based in Nashville, Tennessee.
This issue brief examines the role that hospital charity care programs play in helping patients who are unable to afford their care. It describes how hospital charity care programs work, the amount of charity care that hospitals provide, relevant feder…
Half of hospitals reported that the cost of providing charity care to patients represented 1.4% or less of their operating expenses in 2020, though the rates vary widely from hospital to hospital, a new KFF analysis finds. Based on a review of hospital…
