Consolidation Key to Shoring Up America’s Hospitals

There are too many small and relatively inefficient hospitals. Merging with larger facilities will reduce costs and ensure viability.

America may finally be emerging from its long COVID-19 winter as the omicron variant wanes, but the healthcare industry has a long way to go before it will be able to return to anything resembling a pre-pandemic normal.

The strains placed on the healthcare system by the pandemic have exposed significant vulnerabilities that persist to this day. Record staffing shortages have led to rapidly rising wages and an explosion in the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) expenditures that have left hospitals scrambling to cover unexpected costs. A growing tendency for Medicare and Medicaid to offer insufficient reimbursements for treatments combined with a halt to profit generating elective surgeries have left hospitals to grapple with significant revenue shortfalls.

While Congress has directed funds towards relief for hospitals, this short-term solution has proven uneven. Some providers have been unable to access government funds due to confusing rules and what little money these providers were able to secure was sometimes not enough to cover even the most basic and minimal of pandemic related safety expenses. Such COVID relief funds also do nothing to counteract longer-term…