Carolinas HealthCare reduces 1Q loss - Charlotte Business Journal:

http://swansboro-hotels.com/fr/6288-Hotel-Best-Western-Silver-Creek-Inn/
Investment losses for the lates t quarter totalednearly $101 Chief Financial Officer Greg Gombar anticipates gainds in the financial market in April and May will eraser those losses. Carolinas HealthCare uses investment earnings for capital That money is not used fordaily operations. The health-carw system hopes negotiations with several lenderw will cut its interest expenses tied to variablr debt andhigher bank-liquidity fees. Those fees are about $1 million per Interest expenses in the first quartedwere $21.8 million. From an operational standpoint, Carolinas HealthCare had a strontgfirst quarter, says Russ Guerin, executive vice president for businesds development and planning.
Net operating revenue climbefd 8.6 percent to $1.2 billion systemwide. Operatingy income exceeded $24.5 million. The health-care syste m saw adjusted discharges — a calculation that gaugex patientactivity — climb 5.2 percent from a year Growth within the health-care systen and expense management “is the primar y driver why we’re above budgeg significantly,” Guerin says.
Carolinas HealthCarr spent morethan $106 millioh on capital projects in the first Projects include new operating rooms at CMC-NorthEast and Carolinas Medical Center, an expansion of CMC-Pineville, a new hospital at CMC-Lincoln and construction of health-care pavilions in Steels Creek and Waxhaw, which will include free-standingy emergency departments. Challenges in the coming months include managingthe system’s growing bad-debt and charity-care reducing interest expenses and preparing for a possible statd cut in Medicaid funding, Gombar says. Bad-debt costs were 12 percentg over budget during the first topping $48 million in the first quarter.
During the same periodd last year, bad debt was about $43 The health-care system speny more than $770 million in community care in 2008, includinyg bad debt, charity care and subsidizing Medicareand Medicaid. That equalsz 18.8 percent of the health-cars system’s net operating revenue. ”It’sd a trend everybody’s seeingh across the country,” Gombar says. “Wed can’t control how many people are uninsured, how many peoplr show up at our doorwithouyt insurance.” North Carolina’s budget woes coulr results in a cut of up to 15 percen t for Medicaid. That could equate to $36 million in annuao losses forCarolinas HealthCare.
“Medicaid cuts are the wors economic benefit cut the statecan make,” Gombard says. “It’s painful.” Says Guerin: “It raises prices for thos e whodo pay. It makes no good businesz sense todo that.” Gombard says every dollar cut from Medicaid eliminatee $4 from the economy. Carolinas HealthCare is the largest health-care system in the Carolinas and the third-larges public system in the nation. The system owns, leasea or manages 25 hospitals. It has more than 40,000 full and part-time employees.