NY Presbyterian reports lower net income, higher expenses in H1

• New York-Presbyterian’s net income for the first half of 2018 dropped nearly 47% from a year ago to $170.6 million.
• The system’s operating income also decreased by about 16% to $140 million in the first half, while total operating revenue increased almost 8% to $3.1 billion.
• NYP also saw total operating expenses jump 8.3% compared to a year ago to $3 billion.

The New York City-based nonprofit health system has six main facilities. That includes NYP Hospital, which U.S. News and World Report named the metro area’s top-ranked hospital for 18 consecutive years.

The system, which recently joined Walgreens’ Find Care Now self-service telehealth kiosk initiative, said the lower income came mostly from decreased investments. Higher expenses were associated with salary and benefits and supply costs. Investments dropped from $154 million a year ago down to $30.6 million this year.

For the second quarter, NYP had $78.5 million in operating income, a 9% drop from a year ago. Total revenue increased 8.7% and total expenses increased 9.9% in the quarter compared to last year.

Operating income also fell 18.1% in the quarter to $125.9 million, which was connected to lower investment returns. On the plus side, net patient service revenue increased nearly 9% to $124.7 million. That increase came from higher inpatient and outpatient volume, higher acuity and higher payment rates compared to a year ago.

Salaries increased in Q2 by 7.3% compared to a year ago. That increase was connected to investments in bedside nursing, care coordination and population, information technology and innovation, expanded emergency services and new clinical initiatives that were mostly connected to opening a new ambulatory care facility at the Weill Cornell campus.

NYP is the latest provider to release financial information this quarter. The second quarter and first half have been a mixed bag for providers. Overall, reports show that admissions didn’t drop and volume trends varied by system. Consolidation also remained a hot trend for the quarter.

In recent interviews with Healthcare Dive, analysts said hospitals can’t rely on the graying of American to swell admissions and volume numbers.

“We need to deal with the fact that a lot of these hospitals will face the problem of slowing organic volume growth, other than those who can spend money to drive market share,”  Brian Tanquilut, senior vice president of healthcare services equity research at Jefferies, said.

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/nyp-reports-lower-net-income-higher-expenses-in-h1/531455/