The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council’s (PHC4) Financial Analysis 2024 – Rural Hospitals report displays information specific to Pennsylvania general acute care (GAC) hospitals located in rural counties. Supplementary to PHC4’s Financial Analysis, this is the second report in this new annual series, offering succinct data to support all who rely on rural health care in the Commonwealth.

Rural hospitals, which comprise 41% of Pennsylvania’s statewide total number of GAC hospitals, exhibit distinct financial characteristics. This analysis focuses on the 63 GAC hospitals located in rural areas in fiscal year 2024 (FY24). Of these 63 rural hospitals, 22 (35%) reported operating losses during FY24 based on their operating margins. The average net patient revenue for these hospitals operating at a loss was $80 million in FY24.

The key factors that may contribute to the financial challenges at rural hospitals include:

• Decreased Reimbursements: Reduced payments from government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid placing significant financial pressure on rural hospitals.
• Aging Populations: Rural communities often have older populations, typically requiring more complex and costly medical care.
• Lower Patient Volume: Serving smaller populations limits revenue potential, making it harder for rural hospitals to cover operating expenses.
• Higher Operating Costs: Geographic and logistical challenges—such as transportation, staffing shortages, and maintaining specialized services—contribute to elevated costs.
• Uncompensated Care: Rural hospitals face a growing burden of uncompensated care, including patient bad debt and charity care.

PHC4 strives to ensure Pennsylvanians are armed with publicly available, fact-based, health care information and plans to continuously enrich its reporting and the resources it develops to bring value to communities across the Commonwealth.  PHC4 produces information used to identify opportunities to contain costs and improve the quality of care delivered. For more information, visit phc4.org or access the report here.

PHC4 is an independent council formed under Pennsylvania statute (Act 89 of 1986, as amended by Act 15 of 2020) in order to address rapidly growing health care costs. PHC4 continues to produce comparative information about the most efficient and effective health care to individual consumers and group purchasers of health services. In addition, PHC4 produces information used to identify opportunities to contain costs and improve the quality of care delivered.  

 A new brief, Use of Preventive Services by Rurality, Disability Status, and Health Insurance, from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center examines rates of utilizing two types of preventive care, including routine physicals, and flu vaccination)by rural-urban location, disability status, and health insurance type.

Through the Data Requests department, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) offers custom and standard data files to help you obtain and analyze the health care data you need for health care studies or projects. Our analysts will work with you to meet your comprehensive health care data needs.

Visit the Purchase Customized Data section of PHC4’s website for more information about our data and services, or contact JoAnne Nelson, Director of Financial Analysis and Data Requests at specialrequests@phc4.org.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released its latest Medicaid and CHIP Beneficiary Profile, offering valuable insights for health policy professionals and those serving Medicaid populations.

Key findings include:

• Medicaid covered 41.6% of all U.S. births in 2023, with some states reaching as high as 67.9%
• Children represent 35.9% of all Medicaid beneficiaries nationally, with certain states enrolling up to 75% children
• More than one-third of Medicaid/CHIP households also receive SNAP benefits, underscoring the opportunity for Medicaid and SNAP coordination to smooth the consumer experience and ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Read the full profile.

From Becker’s Review

The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) published the 2024 SHIP Annual Report which now is live on the State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) website.

This annual report provides an outline of the diverse initiatives underway by DOH’s SHIP partners and serves as a compilation of the work conducted by many different organizations in 2024 to reach the same goals. Information includes activities reported by SHIP goal team members and highlights their successes and progress. Data charts for SHIP objectives are provided to visualize trends and track the status of identified health priorities.

This annual report is shared with the public to increase knowledge of the efforts occurring throughout the Commonwealth on priority health issues, to celebrate the work of our SHIP partners, and to ensure open communication of SHIP implementation.