Non-profit healthcare orgs had negative 21.2% returns in '08

If you're a non-profit hospital and your investments tanked last year, welcome to the club.

A new study of 143 non-profit healthcare organizations participating in the Commonfund Institute's review of non-profit financial performance has concluded that non-profits had an average investment return of negative 21.2 percent during fiscal 2008.  This is a huge change from previous years, in which returns ranged between 6 percent and 10 percent.

Fiscal '08 was so bad that it lowered participating heatlhcare organizations' returns for the trailing three-year period, to negative 2.3 percent.  The very best performers in the mix managed only to stem their losses, at negative 2.2 percent.

This comes as respondents continue to sink into debt more deeply. For the four consecutive years, healthcare groups participating in the survey reported bigger debt loads, averaging $681 million in fiscal '08. That's up from $395 million in fiscal '05.

To learn more about the 2009 Commonfund Benchmarks Study of Healthcare Organizations study:
- read this HFMA News piece