Community Health Systems doesn’t expect its emergency room low-acuity volumes to return to pre-pandemic levels next year as patients have moved to other sites of care, executives of the system said.
However, they believe the system is well positioned to pick up some of that care itself thanks to investments in urgent care and other outpatient clinics.
Leadership with the 84-hospital system spoke about predictions for 2022 during an event Monday sponsored by Credit Suisse. The system also spoke about how it is handling a major labor shortage that has gripped the healthcare industry.
CHS Chief Financial Officer Kevin Hammons said that right now, the system’s low-acuity business and lower-paying emergency room business is down.
“This is an area we believe some of that won’t come back,” he said. “People have found other sites of care.”
But Hammons said the system has been able to get some of that care itself thanks to investments in urgent care, walk-in clinics and telehealth.
“To the extent that continues to stick or hold into the future is a little bit of an unknown. We believe our investments are going to help us there,” he said.
The system’s latest earnings report showed volumes were returning overall, with admissions increasing by 2.8% and adjusted by 4.7% on a same-store basis compared in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2020.
CHS CEO Tim Hingtgen said the system did have to delay procedures earlier this year to preserve bed capacity and staff to fight the latest surge of the virus linked to the more transmissible delta variant.
Hammons added CHS saw its peak surge of cases in September, and throughout last month it has seen a decline.
“We still have an elevated number of cases in the hospitals but with that we are starting to see a pickup with some of the deferred procedures and non-COVID-19 cases,” he said.
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But, like other hospitals across the country, CHS has seen increased expenses to accommodate more staff, including higher contracted staff rates.
This includes increased payments for overtime, premium pay, shift differentials and other costs.
Hammons expects that with a more normalization of care, those costs will start to moderate, especially as the costs for contracted staff start to decline. The system is also working to improve the resilience of its workforce by broadening partnerships with nursing schools and offering bonuses for multiyear commitments.
“We knew we had to build our own nursing workforce,” Hingtgen said.