Reliance on Non-Operating Revenue by Rural and Urban Hospitals

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Completed Project

Across the country, rural hospitals are facing significant financial pressure, with prior work demonstrating that rural hospitals tend to be less profitable than their urban counterparts and that the profitability of rural hospitals has decreased in recent years. As such, many hospitals rely on non-operating revenue sources, such as charitable contributions and income from investments, to subsidize their losses from patient care. This project aims to utilize data from Medicare cost reports to compare the percentage of revenue derived from operating versus non-operating sources among all short-term, acute care hospitals in the U.S. and subsequently compare revenue percentages across hospital types (CAHs, rural PPS, urban PPS) and system affiliation status.