Dive Brief:
- A new report from Kaufman Hall has found that inpatient volumes are down in three major metropolitan areas: Boston, Indianapolis and Newark, New Jersey.
- 35% of the Massachusetts inpatient decline and 30% of the Newark decline is due to reduced one-day stays, suggesting that more patients moved from inpatient to observation status or were shunted to outpatient facilities.
- Ambulatory care sensitive admissions, or cases where outpatient care can avoid hospitalization, also fell significantly. For example, in central Indiana, utilization for ACSAs in the cardiovascular care service line fell 24.1%, as compared with an 8.1% decrease for other cases in the service line, the report notes. Massachusetts demonstrated similar results.
Dive Insight:
These statistics document a trend which is been long in coming. For years now, hospitals have struggled to maintain their margins as inpatient volumes have steadily decreased, and it seems likely that the process of moving care to outpatient settings is going to increase speed. It appears that hospitals will need to develop strategies to boost patient revenue — such as Tenet's move into the urgent care center business — to keep themselves afloat.