Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics, also known as the University of Florida Health system, reported a surge in its surplus for fiscal 2015, thanks to a slight increase in admissions and “modest” rate increases from private payers, the system said.
Across its acute-care hospital, psychiatric hospital and rehab hospital, Shands saw a 3.2% jump in inpatient admissions. This year, the system saw 54,156 patients, along with 893,203 outpatients in those facilities and its addiction recovery center, up about 4.7%. The system saw slight drops, 2.5 and 4.5 percentage points respectively, in its Medicare and Medicaid payers. The managed-care portion of its payer mix jumped 7.5 percentage points.
Those statistics bolstered revenue and left the system with a $132.3 million operating surplus for the year ended June 30, up 56% from $84.9 million the prior year. Operating revenue was $1.3 million, up 7% from the year prior.
Non-operating revenues dropped by nearly 92.5%, largely due to a decrease in realized capital gains from the company's investment portfolio, which performed unusually well in 2014. The system's total surplus was $870.4 million, up 9.3% from the prior year.
The system's operating margin for fiscal 2015 was about 10.3%, up from 7.1% the prior year.
Shands increased its provision for bad debts by about 12% to $106 million. Charity care has increased by an average of 10.5% in states such as Florida that haven't expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act.
