Read FierceHealthcare's other stories for your upbeat news this morning: in this article, all we have to offer healthcare executives is more bad news from Fitch Ratings.
Specifically, Fitch has issued a negative outlook for healthcare as a whole. We've already seen it happening, but the weak economy is expected to keep increasing the number of uninsured and underinsured patients into 2009. Not unexpectedly, there also will likely be a rise in bad debt, and demand will likely be reduced further as patients try to scale back on drug spending and elective care.
Fitch also issued a negative outlook for pharmaceutical companies, who are facing uncertain regulatory and legislative environments. The only positive news from Fitch is that medical devicemakers have a stable outlook.
To learn more about the ratings:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece