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Hospitals are experiencing an increase in bad debt - the result of a rise in patients who are uninsured or underinsured, according to a recent TransUnion health care survey.
Approximately 97% of hospital administrators from 22 hospitals in 15 states reported an increase in the number of uninsured and underinsured patients since the beginning of 2007. Additionally, more than 40% of respondents specified bad debt levels between 7% and 10%, according to the Chicago-based credit bureau's survey.
"This was particularly unsettling to learn because national health care organizations have generally operated with much lower bad debt numbers, but now we see that a majority of hospitals are experiencing exceedingly high bad debt percentages," Rod Bazzani, TransUnion's executive vice president of health care, said of the survey data.
Approximately 83% of survey respondents said increasing bad debt had the largest bearing on their hospitals because of the uninsured and underinsured patient population. Hospital administrators said decreasing bad debt was their most important business objective after increasing collections at the time of service and improving operational efficiencies.
