N.H, Utah Hospitals Report Rise In Uncompensated Care

Granite State hospitals projected to spend $358 million on charity care; $305 million will go unreimbursed

Hospitals in New Hampshire and Utah are seeing significant spikes in levels of uncompensated care, a trend that could foretell similar financial issues for acute care providers in other parts of the country, the Valley (N.H.) News and the Salt Lake City Tribune reported...

"We have to find a way to solve that problem," Steve Ahnen, president of the New Hampshire Hospital Association, told the newspaper. "We clearly have to find a way of changing the trajectory of how the system works. It simply is broken and not sustainable."

The Granite State's hospitals are projected to spend $358 million in charity care, of which $305 million will go unreimbursed, according to the Valley News. In Utah, the state's four major hospital systems have seen their charity and uncompensated care burden triple over the past nine years, reaching $698 million in 2012, according to the Tribune...