Advocate Health, the sum of last year’s Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health merger, is up nearly a billion dollars halfway through its first year with a 0.6% operating margin and a hefty $938.4 million from its investments, according to financial statements published Monday.
The 67-hospital nonprofit reported an $85.7 million operating income across six months and $997.9 million of excess revenue over expenses.
The second quarter’s $75.3 million operating income (1% operating margin) also reflect an improvement over the $10.4 million operating income (0.1% margin) of its inaugural first quarter.
Total revenue across the six months of 2023 was nearly 15.2 million and reflects annual growth across each of the system’s divisions (Advocate Aurora Health, Atrium Health’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist).
Expenses were similarly up to more than $15.1 billion, about $8.8 billion (41.7%) of which represented the system’s salaries, wages and benefits spending.
Organizationwide, Advocate Health logged 252,374 discharges, 91,274 observation cases and an average inpatient stay of 5.5 days. It also saw 219,272 total surgeries, the lion’s share of which (71.9%) were outpatient procedures.
Individual divisions also outlined higher volumes and shorter average stays during the second quarter compared to the year prior, though Advocate Aurora Health noted a 5.4% year-over-year dip in its total capitated member lives and a slight uptick in Medicaid patients among its payer mix.
As of June 30, Advocate Health reported over $42.5 billion in total liabilities and net assets.
Now the fifth-largest nonprofit health system in the country, Advocate Health employs more than 150,000 people and serves 6 million patients per year across Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. It brought in roughly $27 billion in annual revenues during 2022, based on Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health’s combined full-year numbers.
Higher volumes and revenues have been a constant across major nonprofit health systems’ second-quarter results, though not all have enjoyed positive operations. Providence, for instance, reported a $202 million operating loss (-2.8% operating margin) this week while UPMC’s operations were down $86 million (-1.2% operating margin).