Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. My name is Chanel Banger. And today, I'm excited to speak with our regular guest, Alan Connan, editor in chief at Becker's Healthcare, who joins us weekly to share insights in the health care trends he's keeping an eye on. Alan, thank you as always for joining me today. Why don't you take it away and tell us about some of the things that you're seeing out there? Yeah. Always a pleasure. Thanks so much, Chanel. So a couple key financial stories that we're following closely at Becker's. Number one, I'd say first and foremost is comes from Trinity Health. So had the pleasure speaking with Trinity CFO, Dan Isaacson, on the podcast last week. Just came on the back of their recent financial results as well. So some insights to pull out of this recent report. Trinity, of course, at 93 hospital nonprofit systems saw notable improvement in its recent financial results. So managed to turn a negative 0.3% operating margin in the first half half of fiscal twenty four into a plus 1.2% operating margin for the first half of fiscal twenty twenty five. So really moving in the right direction there. Fantastic leadership across the board from the house system. Increased revenue from patient services, increased patient volumes played a big part here. While labor and supply cost did increase year over year, expense growth did not outpace that revenue growth. So a positive sign there is Trinity continues to improve its operational and financial results. The only other thing I'd add here from Dan is when it comes to growth, Trinity is laser focused on organic growth, rather than prioritizing any large scale mergers or acquisitions, which, of course, we've seen a big uptake uptick in in the last couple of quarters. The other story I wanted to jump to is we're just coming to the February here, and we've seen a pretty substantial number reported on quite a few hospital closures so far this year. So, we've reported on seven hospital closures so far in 2025. And just for some context, we we've reported on 25 hospital closures overall for 2024. So rural and community hospitals represent most of these closures, as continued operating losses, low financial reserves, and limited revenue sources continue to represent key challenges for many independent and rural hospitals. I think one abrupt closure that we reported on just to call out from last week comes from, Orlando Health, obviously, fantastic nonprofit health system based in Florida. So Orlando Health in April will close Rockledge Hospital in Florida as well as four hospital based outpatient departments. So this is a 290 bed 98 bed hospital, excuse me, and it's one of three hospitals that Orlando Health acquired from Stewart HealthCare in October. So that tree hospital acquisition was completed for around about $440,000,000. However, Orlando Health claims that years of neglect left Rockledge Hospital in such poor condition that it did not meet the health system standards for patient care. So after the acquisition completed, Orlando Health was able to get in there, conduct some in-depth inspections, and ultimately determined that the cost to repair and renovate that hospital far exceeded the cost to to build a new state of the art hospital. So Orlando Health moving to close that hospital in April, demolish hospital, and plans to build a new hospital in that region. However, very early stages in the planning process, no official timeline has been given on when a new hospital might open there, but more news to come on that. And then last quick story I'd highlight, Chanel, before I wrap up is, here in Illinois. So Springfield, Illinois based Sisters Health System just selected Ensemble Health Partners for an end to end revenue cycle partnership. So about 700 HSHS employees will become rebadged as Ensemble employees as part of that agreement. And then with that latest partnership, Ensemble Health Partners now manages just under $40,000,000,000 in annual net patient revenue, which, of course, comes from many hospitals, health systems, and other providers across the country. So key growth there from Ensemble and just another string, another hospital or health system and a string of hospital and health systems that have outsourced their revenue cycle management services to an expert or a leader such as Ensemble. So those are the three key stories that I want to highlight today, Chanel. Perfect. Well, Alan, I wanna thank you as always for joining me today and for sharing your insights on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so much.
