America’s Hospitals and Health Systems Continue to Face Escalating Operational Costs and Economic Pressures as They Care for Patients and Communities

Hospitals and health systems have been at the forefront of a major transformation while at a crossroads of increasing demand for higher acuity care and deepening financial instability. Persistent workforce shortages, severe fractures in the supply chain for drugs and supplies, and high levels of inflation have collectively fueled hospitals’ costs as they care for patients. At the same time, hospitals’ costs have been met with inadequate increases in reimbursement by government payers and increasing administrative burden due to inappropriate commercial health insurer practices.