NYU Hospitals Center is fully back in business after Superstorm Sandy interrupted operations in 2012, dragged down revenue and battered the bottom line of the lower Manhattan-based medical facilities.
The not-for-profit organization, which includes NYU Langone Medical Center and the NYU School of Medicine, reported that its fiscal 2014 net patient revenue soared (PDF) nearly 23% for the year ended Aug. 31. The improvement, from $1.67 billion to $2.04 billion, was in part due to the restoration of the medical center's emergency department, which reopened in late April this year after being damaged by Sandy in October 2012. The emergency department was the last of NYU Hospitals' services to be restored; all others had resumed operations by August 2013.
In the interim, the medical center operated an urgent-care center to handle what it referred to as a “material portion of the patient volume formerly treated in the ED.” However, business interruption losses hit the center's financial statements during the time that facilities were closed or being repaired. Overall, utilization declined dramatically between 2012 and 2013, with emergency room and urgent-care center visits falling more than 31% from 37,940 to 26,098.
Complete operating data for 2014 has not yet been released, but for the nine months ended May 31, admissions through the ED and urgent-care center were up 52.4% compared with the year-ago period.
But NYU Hospitals' 2014 bottom line didn't just benefit from improved utilization. The system's disaster-related expenses also dropped from $115 million to $22.1 million, a decline of 80.8%, between 2013 and 2014. Those expenses were incurred to cover costs associated with repairing, replacing and demolishing properties damaged by Sandy.
Without such a hefty additional weight in 2014, other rising operating expenses were still not enough to offset the revenue gains. NYU Hospitals Center reported an operating surplus for the year of $214.8 million, representing a 349.3% growth over the 2013 operating surplus of $47.8 million.
The medical center also benefitted from improvements among its non-operating items. After $33.7 million of impairment costs and loss on asset disposals in 2013, the center reported gains on both capital assets and investments for the year ended Aug. 31, further helping to bring the not-for-profit out of the red.
NYU Hospitals Center's net surplus for 2014 recovered to $269.1 million after the effects of Sandy contributed to a loss of $29.1 million last year.
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