Jan 12, 2024
It comes as no surprise that the COVID pandemic was a costly one for healthcare facilities across the region. The toll it has taken was laid out in a report this week from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4).
“From March 2020 through December 2022, there were 263,800 hospitalizations with COVID-19 in Pennsylvania acute care hospitals,” the report noted. The peak was in January 2022, with 26,206 hospitalizations.
At Upper Allegheny Health System, parent company of Bradford Regional Medical Center and Olean (N.Y.) General Hospital, similar trends were noted.
“Upper Allegheny Health System experienced many similarities as summarized in the recent report,” said spokesman Joseph Fuglewicz, in response to questions about the PHC4 report. “COVID cases peaked in early 2022, which continued to put pressure on our healthcare system and workers.”
And the cost of the pandemic was huge, both in COVID-related expenses and in lost revenue.
The total reported expenses and losses by Pennsylvania hospitals and health systems from January 2020 to December 2022 were a whopping $8.1 billion.
Lost revenue was the greatest number, at $5.3 billion, the report noted, while staffing expenses came in at $1.3 billion.
Locally, Fuglewicz said, costs of the pandemic hit hard.
“The financial implications from COVID were unprecedented due to rising costs of supplies and the added expenditures of agency staffing, which at our peak, was costing UAHS $3.5 million per month,” he said.
“The cost of agency staff skyrocketed due to the high demand of healthcare workers,” Fuglewicz explained. “Throughout the pandemic and subsequently in the time following, staffing shortages have continued to burden hospitals. The increased costs due to additional staffing expenses and lower volumes due to inadequate staffing has turned healthcare across the nation upside down.”
However, he said, things are turning around.
“As a healthcare system that provides care for a service area of over 140,000 people, although we’re not where we need to be just yet, we are celebrating the progress made moving UAHS in the appropriate direction,” Fuglewicz said.
“We’ve had a record-breaking year, hiring over 50 nurses and keeping nursing turnover rates at an all-time low, displacing agency staff and reducing costs. Leadership is determined to continue this progress throughout 2024 to meet the healthcare needs of our region with providing comprehensive quality care close to home.”
Bradford Era