Seven Nonprofit Hospitals Among Country’s Most Profitable

Seven of the 10 most profitable hospitals are nonprofits, with each earning at least $150 million in 2013, reports The Washington Post, citing a new study. The study comes as states and municipalities consider ending or amending tax breaks for nonprofit medical centers that own vast amounts of property and have large cash reserves.

Nonprofit hospitals took the top four spots in the report, with Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wisc., earning the most in 2013 — $302.5 million, according to the study, which was released in the medical journal Health Affairs. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Washington and Lee University analyzed Medicare data for about 3,000 acute-care hospitals, of which 59 percent were nonprofit, 25 percent for-profit, and the rest public.

The researches only took into account net income from patient services and did not include other sources of revenue, like donations, investments, and rental of hospital space. Some of the hospitals reported as most profitable said the study did not reflect all of the administrative and other costs associated with their organizations, skewing the results.