The dashboard shows the statewide median payment for different services, and how payments vary over time or by region.
Providers have been vocal about the effects of inflation and rising care costs against low payer reimbursement. The Oregon Health Authority is taking matters into its own hands by publishing an online dashboard detailing the finances and utilization of individual hospitals.
The dashboard examines the reimbursements for different procedures and treatments that state hospitals received from insurers from 2021 and 2022, how they vary over time or by region. There are three other dashboards on the OHA’s website that examine data from different angles, each developed with the intent to monitor and reign in growing healthcare costs.
Users are can view payment trends by category (inpatient, outpatient, pregnancy related, diagnostic imaging and testing, etc.) and procedure and see the statewide median payment, as well as the payments that individual hospitals received.
For example, while the statewide median payment for blood transfusions was $27,812 in 2021, for the year, Oregon Health and Science University received the highest median payment, $88,102, while Kaiser Westside Medical Center received the lowest median payment at $13,935.
With the dashboards illustrating the variances in how hospitals are reimbursed and payments not keeping up with inflation, providers have data they can leverage in negotiations with payers.
In 2023, the state’s 61 community hospitals posted a median -1.3% operating loss, according to the Hospital Association of Oregon. Despite breaking even on operational expenses, reporting an operating profit of $17.2 million on operating revenues of $18.5 billion, it’s below the 3% profit margin deemed healthy for the healthcare sector.
“We had thought that [2023] would be the period when hospitals would be recovering from COVID [financially], but it looks like instead we are in the new normal,” the association’s CEO, Becky Hultberg stated.
Jasmyne Ray is the revenue cycle editor at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The Oregon Health Authority has published a dashboard tracking reimbursement payments for the state's hospitals.
The dashboard, and three others viewable on the agency's website, are intended to monitor and slow growing healthcare costs.