Apply Pressure Here! Hospitals Face Converging Secular and Cyclical Trend
The not-for-profit (NFP) hospital sector credit ratings and fundamentals peaked in 2017. Over the last three years, hospitals saw accelerating revenue growth, reduced charity care and falling bad debt expense resulting from expanded health insurance access. These improvements led to stable, and in some cases improved, operating cash flow margins during a time of both regulatory implementation pain and robust political healthcare debate.
