Tag: Profit

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Hospital’s tax ruling could have ripple effect

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JULY 1, 2015, 11:47 PM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015, 11:48 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

A ruling in state tax court that has taken away the property-tax exemption of a major medical center because it operates more like a for-profit business than a charitable institution could have implications for other non-profit hospitals around the state if the municipalities that host them seek to collect property taxes.

Judge Vito Bianco declared in a closely watched opinion that Morristown Medical Center failed “to qualify for property tax exemption” for three years beginning in 2006. The case has been in the court system for the better part of a decade. It is unclear how the ruling applies to later years.

Non-profit hospitals have changed a lot since their origins as “charitable alms houses providing free basic medical treatment to the infirm poor,” he said, likening Morristown’s business model to that of its “new for-profit competitors.” Eight hospitals statewide currently are owned by for-profit companies, with two more due to be acquired at the end of this month. These investor-owned facilities pay taxes, unless they negotiate tax abatements with local authorities.

Like the for-profits, “today’s non-profit hospitals have evolved into labyrinthine corporate structures, intertwined with both non-profit and for-profit subsidiaries and unaffiliated corporate entities,” Bianco wrote. They “generate significant revenue and pay their professionals salaries that are competitive even by for-profit standards.”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/hospital-s-tax-ruling-could-have-ripple-effect-1.1366632

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Race Is On to Profit From Rise of Urgent Care

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Race Is On to Profit From Rise of Urgent Care

By JULIE CRESWELLJULY 9, 2014

NORWALK, Conn. — Start in Room 4, just beyond the reception area: A man is having blood drained from a bruised finger. Over in Room 1, a woman is being treated for eye trouble. Next door, in Room 2, a boy is having his throat swabbed.

For more than eight hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, an assortment of ailments is on display at the tidy medical clinic on Main Avenue here. But all of the patients have one thing in common: No one is being treated at a traditional doctor’s office or emergency room.

Instead, they have turned to one of the fastest-growing segments of American health care: urgent care, a common category of walk-in clinics with uncommon interest from Wall Street. Once derided as “Doc in a Box” medicine, urgent care has mushroomed into an estimated $14.5 billion business, as investors try to profit from the shifting landscape in health care.

The office here is part of PhysicianOne Urgent Care. Bankrolled by two private investment companies, PhysicianOne has grown into an eight-clinic operation, the largest of its kind in Connecticut, with plans for even greater expansion.

But what is happening here is also playing out across the nation, as private equity investment firms, sensing opportunity, invest billions in urgent care and related businesses. Since 2008, these investors have sunk $2.3 billion into urgent care clinics. Commercial insurance companies, regional health systems and local hospitals are also looking to buy urgent care practices or form business relationships with them.

The business model is simple: Treat many patients as quickly as possible. Urgent care is a low-margin, high-volume proposition. At PhysicianOne here, most people are in and out in about 30 minutes. The national average charge runs about $155 per patient visit. Do 30 or 35 exams a day, and the money starts to add up.

Urgent care clinics also have a crucial business advantage over traditional hospital emergency rooms in that they can cherry-pick patients. Most of these centers do not accept Medicaid and turn away the uninsured unless they pay upfront. Hospital E.R.s, by contrast, are legally obligated to treat everyone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/business/race-is-on-to-profit-from-rise-of-urgent-care.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&_r=0