Not-For-Profit Hospitals Save 14% in Medicare Costs on Average, Report Says
The cost of caring for a Medicare patient is significantly higher in areas of the country where hospitals are managed by for-profit companies, researchers report in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Elaine M. Silverman and her colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School found that the average cost of care per Medicare recipient in 1995 was $5,172 for patients treated in an area where for-profit hospitals predominated, and $4,440--14% less--in areas of the country where there are no for-profit hospitals.
Similar differences were seen in 1989 and 1992 in all four categories studied: hospital services, doctor services, home health care and services at other facilities. If all Medicare enrollees had lived in areas served by not-for-profit hospitals, the researchers estimated that Medicare would have saved more than $5 billion just in 1995.
--Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II
