Report: Hospitals, Health Systems Struggling with Transfer of Patients

January 19, 2023

Data released January 17 from the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) shows that hospitals and health systems are struggling to properly discharge patients to appropriate care settings.  

MHA found that in one week this past December, nearly 2,000 patients were eligible for transfer to a continuing care setting such as a nursing home, group home, or residential mental health treatment facility but could not be discharged from inpatient care due to a lack of capacity in post-acute care settings. This resulted in 14,622 extra hospital patient days – a data sample that is reflective of the recent patient census situation in both rural and urban hospitals.  

The financial impact of these delays is significant because many payers do not reimburse hospitals and health systems for boarding these patients. Each extra patient day costs a hospital about $2,500, equating to nearly $37 million in unreimbursed costs across Minnesota hospitals and health systems for the week reported.  

Hospitals and health systems are already struggling financially, with a sharp decline (172% decline for Q1 and Q2 2022 over same time period of 2021) in year-over-year operating margin and exponentially rising labor and supply costs.  

Minnesota’s ongoing workforce crisis adds to the challenges of discharging patients, particularly to post-acute care settings. There is a significant shortage of healthcare professionals across all areas of healthcare, including nursing homes, long-term acute care settings, and hospitals, resulting in a lack of qualified professionals to care for and discharge patients in a timely manner. Minnesota hospitals and health systems reported a 250% increase in job vacancies last year.  

This MHA data reports patient census data for hospitals and health systems during the week of December 11-17, 2022.