Cost-Shifting in New Hampshire Hospitals, 2004

Full Report (PDF)

Brief Description

This report finds that the costs of freely provided charity care, bad debt, and underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid resulted in $300 million of cost-shifting by the state's 26 community hospitals in 2004. Health insurers paid, on average, 138% of cost for hospital services to fund the cost-shift and hospital margins that averaged 5.9%. The report, an update to our report of October 2003, presents a cost-shift "Hydraulics diagram" for each hospital for the first time.