Prognosis: Profits

North Carolina’s urban hospitals pile up the cash

The Quiet Room at the $235 million Duke Cancer Center in Durham is for patients, visitors and employees to relax and meditate. Some North Carolina hospitals have plowed profits into expensive buildings and machines and rewarded executives with generous salaries.

DAY 1: The IRS may consider them nonprofits, but local hospitals have hundreds of millions in cash flow and much more in reserves.

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Archive by category ''Prognosis: Profits

PROGNOSIS: PROFITS

Under new NC law, patients’ hospital bills will be simpler

Starting next June, hospitals will have to post prices for common procedures and detail what the hospital is paid by Medicaid, Medicare, private insurers and uninsured patients. They’ll also have to post their charity care policies prominently.
STATE POLITICS

Sen. Phil Berger pushes effort to cap sales tax refunds from nonprofits

The state Senate voted Thursday to cap sales tax refunds for non-profits, a move that could eventually cost hospitals, universities and other charities $235 million in revenue a year.
HEALTH & SCIENCE

Huge ranges in hospital prices, health care data show

The charges for hospitals, released by the Obama administration, provides new proof that there’s little consistency in pricing.
LOCAL/STATE

Rare defeats put hospitals on offensive

In a social media initiative targeted at lawmakers and their constituents, the N.C. Hospital Association says that hospitals are “fighting for their economic survival.”
HEALTH & SCIENCE

Senate panel approves legislation to force NC hospitals to clarify billing

Bills would have to be written in clear, easy-to-understand language, and hospitals would be prohibited from placing a lien on a delinquent patient’s home.
HEALTH & SCIENCE

NC Attorney General Cooper says he’ll push for tighter controls on hospitals

Roy Cooper urges legislative leaders to tighten controls on hospital billing and to force them to offer more charity care. He also wants notice before a hospital acquires a doctor’s practice or buys another hospital.
LOCAL/STATE

The News & Observer’s hospital series is Pulitzer Prize finalist

“Prognosis: Profits,” a series jointly produced by The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Price in local reporting, announced Monday.
PROGNOSIS: PROFITS

NC hospitals reap profits from discount drugs

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, says information he obtained from Duke University Hospital, UNC Hospital and Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte has added to his questions about whether the program is functioning as intended.
HEALTH & SCIENCE

New bill in N.C. legislature would take mystery out of hospital prices

Hospitals would be required to publicly disclose their prices on their most common medical procedures under the bill, sponsored by Republican senators Bob Rucho of Matthews and Harry Brown of Jacksonville. The legislation was prompted by a series of stories in The News & Observer and The Charlotte...
HEALTH & SCIENCE

Hospitals fight limits on office care

In the convoluted world of Medicare billing, hospital-owned clinics can collect far more than independent physicians for routine office visits.