Six of the acute care hospitals operated by Jefferson Health, including three Lehigh Valley Health Network hospitals, spent more money than they brought in during fiscal year 2025, according to a new report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.<\/p>\n
Both St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network and Jefferson Health overall finished the 2025 fiscal year flush with cash. However, in the case of Jefferson, this was despite the fact that several hospitals, most of which were on the legacy Jefferson side, ended the year millions of dollars in the red.<\/p>\n
Jefferson was not alone in this regard; according to the PHC4, 28% of general acute care hospitals in the state posted negative operating margins.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The PHC4, an entity created by the state that analyzes and shares data about health care costs and quality in the state, releases an annual analysis on the financial health of the state\u2019s hospitals. The report for fiscal year 2025 was released on Thursday.<\/p>\n
In a statement,\u00a0Barry D. Buckingham, PHC4\u2019s Executive Director, said the report \u201coffers a comprehensive view of the financial health of Pennsylvania\u2019s general acute care hospitals. These insights give communities across the Commonwealth the tools they need to make informed health care decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Morning Call reached out to Jefferson for comment, but did not hear back by deadline.<\/p>\n
St. Luke\u2019s reports consistent financials, while Jefferson sees wide disparity<\/p>\n
According to the report, Jefferson hospitals fell on both ends of the income spectrum. Lehigh Valley Hospital\u2013Cedar Crest finished fiscal year 2025 with $3.5 billion in net patient revenue and $402 million in net income, with a margin of about 11%. Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital, however, lost over $101 million,\u00a0 with a margin of about -13%.<\/p>\n
LVH\u2013Cedar Crest had the third-highest income of any hospital in the state; Jefferson Einstein saw the biggest loss of any hospital.<\/p>\n
The St. Luke\u2019s hospital with the highest net income was St. Luke\u2019s University Hospital, Fountain Hill, which brought in more than $347 million for the network with a total margin of 22%. It had the fifth-highest total income of any general acute care hospital in the state.<\/p>\n
The network\u2019s lowest net income hospital was St. Luke\u2019s Hospital\u2013Carbon, which brought in more than $10 million and had a margin of 10%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn recent years, St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network has reported consolidated operating margins of between 2.5% & 3.0%, after factoring in the significant investment necessary to assure a ready supply of providers to support the communities\u2019 healthcare needs. At St. Luke\u2019s, we employ over 2,830 providers and additional support staff whose net cost is not included in the hospitals\u2019 operating margins reported by PHC4,\u201d said St. Luke\u2019s chief financial officer Scott Wolfe.<\/p>\n
Grand View Hospital in Bucks County, now St. Luke\u2019s Hospital\u2013Grand View after St. Luke\u2019s acquired it in the beginning of fiscal year 2026, lost the second largest amount of money with a net loss of $77 million and a total margin just above\u00a0 -29%.<\/p>\n
The biggest differences between Jefferson and St. Luke\u2019s were revenue versus expenditures. According to the PHC4 report, the entire Jefferson enterprise generated $10 billion in operating revenue, versus St. Luke\u2019s at about $2.9 billion. However, St. Luke\u2019s finished the fiscal year with $636 million in net income, whereas Jefferson finished with $451 million. St. Luke\u2019s operated hospitals spent comparatively less.<\/p>\n
Jefferson publicly acknowledged in October 2025 that it faced financial troubles when it laid off approximately 1% of its total workforce.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Four St. Luke\u2019s hospitals \u2014 Anderson, Fountain Hill, Geisinger St. Luke\u2019s and St. Luke\u2019s Easton \u2014 had margins greater than 20%, and all hospitals the network operated had margins greater than 10%. All but Carbon were among the top 50 hospitals in the state by operating margin.\n<\/p>\n
On the other hand, only three LVHN hospitals \u2014 Pocono, Hazleton and Cedar Crest \u2014 along with and Jefferson Lansdale in Montgomery County saw total margins greater than 10%. Of these, Pocono and Hazleton were in the top 50 best margin hospitals.<\/p>\n
Jefferson Abington Hospital, Jefferson Health Northeast, LVH-Schuylkill, Jefferson Einstein Montgomery, Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia and LVH-Macungie all had negative total margins for the fiscal year.<\/p>\n
However, LVH-Macungie, the network\u2019s first microhospital, had some exceptional circumstances surrounding it. The microhospital, which opened in March 2024, was reported to have lost nearly $6 million, with an operating margin of about -30%. However, PHC4 noted that the facility submitted incomplete or inaccurate data and expenses are usually higher than revenues during the start-up period for a facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six of the acute care hospitals operated by Jefferson Health, including three Lehigh Valley Health Network hospitals, spent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253,983,3,31300],"class_list":["post-699930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}