(TNS) — Penn Highlands Healthcare hospital system reported a loss from operations of $11.8 million for the three months ending Dec. 31, fresh evidence of the financial pressures facing rural Pennsylvania hospitals.
The loss for Clearfield County-based Penn Highlands on $461.2 million in operating revenue was down $1.8 million or 15% from the $13.6 million operational loss a year ago. At the same time, net patient revenue for the latest quarter rose 3.5% to $426.3 million from 2022, while admissions to the system’s eight hospitals, newborn deliveries and emergency department visits all rose compared to a year ago.
Hospitals in Fayette and Washington counties are part of the Penn Highlands network.
Stung by steep operational losses a year ago, which led to a bond rating outlook downgrade to negative from stable, Penn Highlands will end maternity services at Penn Highlands Elk Hospital in St. Marys and close a 138-bed nursing home on the hospital campus May 1 in belt-tightening moves.
In October, Fitch Ratings cited Penn Highlands’ $32 million loss from operations on $895 million in operating revenue for the outlook downgrade. Fitch maintained the system’s A- bond debt rating.
Penn Highlands will soon join the 267 other rural hospitals that dropped OB care between 2011 and 2021, which represents nearly 25% of America’s rural maternity units, according to a new study by Chartis Clinical Quality Solutions, a health care advisory group with offices in Boston, New York and elsewhere.
Penn Highlands has corporate offices in DuBois and operates hospitals, retirement homes, retail pharmacies, ambulance services and other health services in nine counties of Pennsylvania.
The Chartis study found that 50% of America’s rural hospitals operate in the red, the highest percentage of rural hospitals losing money in the past decade.
“The jump from 43% operating in the red last year to 50% this year is the single largest percentage change we have seen in a 12-month period,” the report found. Approximately 20%, or 418 rural U.S. hospitals, were vulnerable to closure.
