Most rural, non profit hospitals barely get by. With outpatient services limited, they're losing money hand over fist. At one point, we were losing a million a day of revenue. If this doesn't get worse, those layoffs allowed the system to break even for the year, which for a hospital our size means that we'll be behind $15 to 20 million in capital expenditures next year, which are needed to keep the equipment and facility up to date. Unfortunately, it's going to get worse. I'll be ok, I'm retired military and I've already told my boss she can move me from FTE to a consultant, to trim the operational budget, and move my hours to the project centers of my projects, but it's going to get ugly for a lot more people when we have to stop outpatient surgeries and other outpatient services.
Hospitals are lucky to see 4% profit margins in a good year, most rural operate in the negative. Pharmacies operate about 4% also, as do insurance companies. Pharma operates between 10 and 22%. The real costs of health care are Americans terrible health, specialists pay, lack of primary care providers (pushing more care to specialists), pharma and uncompensated care.
