Dive Brief:
- The merger between Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care created a gap in its year-over-year financial reports this year, with no comparable data available to match the first nine months of 2019. Still, the merged operator of hospitals and medical networks in Illinois and Wisconsin reported nearly tripling its surplus, as well as an increase in revenue. Its returns on investment income were also relatively strong.
- The organization also said it was beefing up its presence in Wisconsin, spending $705 million to construct a new hospital, ambulatory surgical center and medical offices, as well as replacing an existing medical campus. The projects will be completed between 2020 and 2022.
- Surplus for the first nine months of this year was $1.05 billion, compared to just $38.1 million for those nine months of the curtailed fiscal 2019, an increase of 163.8%. Revenue also grew, from $9.21 billion for the nine months ending Dec. 31 of last year to $9.44 billion through the first nine months of this year, an increase of 2.5%.
Dive Insight:
The merger of Aurora Health Care and Advocate Healthcare, finalized in April 2018, put its financial reporting out of joint. As part of a switch from a fiscal to a calendar year, the fused companies do not have year-over-year reporting for the first nine months of 2018. Instead, the organization said numbers should be compared to the first nine months of fiscal 2019, which ended on Dec. 31 of last year.
Nevertheless, the numbers appear healthy for Advocate Aurora Health.
Revenue in Illinois grew swiftly, from $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion, an increase of 28.6%. Revenue also grew in Wisconsin, from $4.025 billion for the nine months in calendar 2018 to $4.26 billion during the first nine months of this year, an increase of 5.8%.
Investment income for the first nine months of 2019 was $712.8 million, including $13.7 million for the third quarter. That contrasts with a loss of $258.1 million for the comparable nine months of 2018.
The system is investing heavily in Wisconsin over the next several years. It is spending $250 million to build a new hospital and medical offices in Mount Pleasant that will open in 2021; $325 million to replace an existing medical campus in Sheboygan that will be completed in 2022; and $130 million to build ambulatory surgical center and medical office building in the Kenosha/Pleasant Prairie region that will open next year.