Hospitals With More Medicare Patients Are More Likely to Close or Be Acquired

Chief Healthcare Executive August 7, 2021
Laura Joszt, MA

Hospitals with a higher share of Medicare patients performed worse financially and were more likely to face closure or acquisition.

Hospitals with a higher share of Medicare patients were more likely to face closure or acquisition and had more rapidly declining profits, according to a study published in Health Affairs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant financial difficulties for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the authors predict there will be pressure to curb the growth in fees paid by public payers.

The study analyzes the “relationship between public payment and the hospital industry market structure” by evaluating whether a hospital’s Medicare share is associated with the hospital’s profitability and likelihood it could close or be acquired.

“We hypothesized...

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