The addition of SCL Health’s eight hospitals boosted Intermountain Healthcare’s revenues by 24.5% and shielded the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit from posting 10-figure net losses for the first half of 2022, according to the first earnings filed since the organizations’ April 1 merger.
Now a 33-hospital heavyweight, Intermountain reported $6.5 billion in revenues for the first six months of the year, up from the $5.2 billion it had posted during the same period last year.
Its six-month expenses grew at a faster 30.7% rate, from $4.5 billion to $5.9 billion. This led its net operating income to shrink 38.2% year over year from $461 million (8.8% operating margin) to $285 million (4.4% operating margin).
A $1.7 billion loss from investments during the year’s first half would have dragged Intermountain well into the red were it not for more than $4.1 billion in affiliation contributions resulting from the merger deal.
With these, the nonprofit closed out its bookkeeping with over $2.7 billion in net profit for the first six months of 2022. The organization also reported net assets exceeding $16.4 billion and $701 million in cash and equivalents as of June 30.
Taking into account the pre-merger volumes of both Intermountain and SCL, the organization saw a year-over-year decline in inpatient admissions (−1.1%) and surgeries (−2.3%) as well as outpatient visits (−7%). The system’s average length of stay increased from 4.3 days to 4.5 days while outpatient surgeries (4.1%), clinic visits (10.9%) and emergency room visits (10.9%) all increased.
This past week also saw Intermountain announce Lydia Jumonville, formerly the president and CEO of SCL Health, as the new organization’s interim president and CEO.
Marc Harrison, M.D., who had led Intermountain since 2016, announced earlier this month plans to leave for a new role at investment firm General Catalyst.
While its merger may have led to a unique bottom line, Intermountain’s underlying numbers were in line with trends seen across the country’s other large nonprofit health systems.
Names like Advocate Aurora Health, UPMC, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente all logged thinner margins as struggling investments drove painful net losses. Sutter Health, Mass General Brigham and Providence, meanwhile, paired slumping investments with tens to hundreds of millions in operational losses.