Albany, NY, Dec. 14, 2022 — Escalating care delivery costs and persistent workforce shortages are causing New Yorkers to lose access to healthcare services – and providers expect this access to further deteriorate. A new report from New York’s state and allied hospital associations calls on policymakers to recognize this grim reality and make immediate and sustained investments and policy changes to stabilize the healthcare system.

New York’s hospital associations surveyed their members in fall 2022. Their new report, Critical Condition, explores the survey’s findings and provides context for the challenges hospitals face. Survey findings include:

49% of hospitals report reducing and/or eliminating services to mitigate staffing challenges while ensuring their most critical services remain available for patients.

100% of hospitals report nursing shortages they cannot fill; over 75% said that other key worker positions cannot be filled — directly impacting the accessibility of healthcare services.
64% of hospitals report a negative operating margin (losing money when comparing care-related revenue and expenses); 85% report negative or unsustainable operating margins of less than 3%.
Fiscal Survey report cover

The report highlights hospitals’ troubling fiscal condition as uncontrollable costs continue to rise, revenue lags and workforce shortages persist. With pandemic-related government support ending and expenses continuing to escalate, hospitals’ dire fiscal crisis is likely to only get worse. Hospitals’ continued viability as healthcare providers and key job creators in their communities is in immediate jeopardy.

The severe fiscal challenges facing hospitals nationally were noted in a November 2022 hospital flash report from the Chicago-based research firm Kaufman Hall. The report found that the nation’s hospitals, including those in New York, “continue to face the significant weight of high expenses outpacing revenues, particularly when it comes to the cost of labor,” and that “the high cost of materials due to inflation has not abated.” Kaufman Hall also noted, “As the year comes to a close, compounding months of poor performance could signal continued difficulties for hospitals in the near future.”

Amid national for-profit health insurance companies’ abusive practices that threaten care delivery and misguided ad campaigns on hospital prices, New York’s hospitals continue to deliver high-quality patient care, serving on the front lines 24/7 during the current “tripledemic” of influenza, RSV and COVID-19 and a worsening mental health crisis.

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