Orange County hospitals grew net patient revenue 7% year-over-year to $8.5 billion, largely due to the continuing move toward more outpatient visits.
Business from patients not staying the night at local healthcare facilities grew about 1%, which doesn’t sound like much but it topped in-patient days’ growth—less than a quarter of 1 percent—and a flat 10-day average length of stay. Moreover, the top seven hospitals by net patient revenue on our list each show individual increases.
The shift is not new: driven by financial incentives and patient preferences, OC providers are offering care at more convenient and lower-cost sites, including outpatient cancer centers, upgraded urgent care sites—and even at home (see Q&A, page 22).
Big Medicine
Hospital may be getting smaller but our largest hospitals stayed big.
The top seven last year kept their top slots, albeit with some shuffling—UCI Medical Center in Orange, Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim and Irvine, Hoag in Newport Beach and Irvine, Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, CHOC Children’s and St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, and St. Jude in Fullerton, respectively.
The seven—the same ones showing higher outpatient revenue—combined for $5.5 billion in net patient top line, or 66% of the list’s total. More than 10% of that dropped to the pre-tax bottom line for the group.
No. 8 Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center made a healthy bid to join the “magnificent seven” with a 28% increase to $510 million in net patient revenue, from $399 million a year ago.
Even that was only good for the fourth-highest hike:
• No. 20 Huntington Beach Hospital was up 39% to $67 million in net patient revenue.
• No. 16 Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center passed the $100 million mark, up 37% to $114 million.
• No. 14 West Anaheim Medical Center was up 31% to $134 million.
Good Neighbors
OC outpatient efforts and new initiatives touch all bases.
• No. 1 UCI Medical Center opened satellites in Newport Beach and Yorba Linda.
• No. 3 Hoag’s outpatient surgery center, No. 15 Hoag Orthopedic Institute, reported $120 million in net patient revenue and, last month, a new partnership with a physical therapy provider to expand into sports medicine.
• No. 4 Mission Hospital broke ground on a 104,000-square-foot outpatient cancer center set to open this year.
• MemorialCare began construction on a 26,000-square-foot health center in Rancho Mission Viejo, also scheduled to open this year.
A future list member, City of Hope’s Orange County location, a 70,000-square-foot cancer center in Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, won’t open for at least another three years but the Duarte-based operator this year will debut a 12,500-square-foot location in Newport Beach.
No Small Things
Long Beach-based MemorialCare’s two OC hospitals—in Laguna Hills at No. 9 and Fountain Valley at No. 10—combined for about $622 million in net patient revenue, flat year-over-year.
A quartet of for-profit hospitals owned by KPC Healthcare Inc.—No. 13 Orange County Global Medical Center, No. 18 Anaheim Global Medical Center, No. 24 South Coast Global Medical Center and No. 25 Chapman Global Medical Center—combined for about $382 million in net patient revenue.
Just six of 30 hospitals on the list showed a decline in net patient revenue: none were down more than 7% and two were less than 1% lower. This despite half the list reporting fewer in-patient days, and one-third showing fewer outpatient visits.
Fewer visits and stays coupled with higher patient revenue suggest an increase in healthcare costs to the consumer. In addition, seven hospitals on the list reported a pre-tax net loss in 2017 and only four did last year, with three of the four losing money in both.
