Nebraska Hospital Association concerned over hospital finances

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - Nebraskan hospital finances are causing concern for industry officials.

According to the Nebraska Hospital Association, the cost to provide patient care in Nebraska is up more than 21% over the last three years.

Drug costs play a big part in that with an increase of 43% from 2020 to 2022. In that same time period, operating margins for Nebraska hospitals have fallen over 70%

The vice president of finance for Nebraska Medicine, Bryce Brackle, said he doesn’t see a short-term fix for the issues at hand.

“I don’t want to sound too pessimistic,” Brackle said. “I don’t think you’re going to right the course this year, I think a lot of the solutions that are be evaluated those are going to take months if not a few years. Taking another look at how you’re providing care for patients in the community is there to do it more efficiently with less resources, those things that are going to take quite a bit of time to evaluate.”

2022 already had Nebraska hospitals behind the eight ball, according to NHA’s President Jeremy Nordquist.

“The bad news is 2022 did not end on a high note we had at the end of the year over 55% of our hospitals operating in the red running negative margins and 93% of our hospitals at that time, looking forward at 2023, said it’s going to be a very challenging financial year ahead,” Nordquist said.

Norquist said they are working with the Nebraska Legislature to help with issues such as increasing Medicaid and hiring more nurses to build up the workforce.

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