# Hospital Income- From Where? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922 "2019-03-11T02:02:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/1 "2019-03-11T02:02:06Z")
I recognize the demographics of each hospital varies greatly. That said, anyone have any data on what percentage of income comes from private insurance? Medicare? Other government sources? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/2 "2019-03-11T02:06:19Z")
It depends on the facility. For example, a children’s hospital will have very few Medicare patients (although some children are on it) and a public nursing home will get a large percentage, if not the outright majority, of its funds from Medicaid. A hospital in a wealthy suburb won’t have anywhere near as many Medicaid or private-pay patients as one in a poverty-stricken rural area. Speaking from personal experience, while I didn’t have total access to that information, I could tell that most of the funds at the hospitals where I worked came from Medicare, because most of the patients were 65 years of age or older. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/3 "2019-03-11T02:32:05Z")
I only spent a short time poking around on google, but I found a number of 60 percent of all heath care costs were paid for by medicare and medicaid. That number seems to include all health care, not just hospitals. I also found that hospitals only collect about a third of what they bill, and despite that, they still tend to run on roughly an 8 percent profit margin on average. That was the extent of my googling. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/4 "2019-03-11T13:53:51Z")
It doesn’t answer you question directly, but here is a study on the breakdown of medical payers in California. > **[Public money accounts for more than 70 percent of health care spending in...](https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/public-money-accounts-for-more-than-70-percent-of-health-care-spending-in-california)** > > UCLA researchers say that given the dominance of public spending in health care, a single-payer system might be more feasible than previously thought. For every $100 in medical costs in California about $27 are paid by medicaid, $20 by Medicare, $34 by employer health insurance (of that $12 is tax credits to the employer to buy insurance, $16 in employer premiums and $6 in employee premiums) etc. Those are the big ones. The other $19 are from a wide range or public and private funds. Anyway, the elderly are on Medicare and many of the truly sick and disabled are on medicaid. Those are the people more likely to end up in a hospital so I’m sure they are over represented in hospital bills paid. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/5 "2019-03-12T20:46:09Z")
The term you are wanting to seek is “payer mix”. Approx payer mix currently: Medicare (elderly care) - 41% Medicaid (low income care) - 17% Private insurance - 21% Self-pay - 5% Workmen’s comp or other govt. - 2% Hospital write-off - 14% ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/6 "2019-03-12T21:50:47Z")
FYI, hospitals probably aren’t a good indicator of where healthcare money is spent in the US- most people won’t see the inside of a hospital as a patient until they’re very old, unless they have some sort of accident, or if they get some sort of unusual illness. Most healthcare is done in doctor’s offices, diagnostic clinics and various treatment centers. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/7 "2019-03-13T21:40:40Z")
> [@bump](#): > > FYI, hospitals probably aren’t a good indicator of where healthcare money is spent in the US- most people won’t see the inside of a hospital as a patient until they’re very old, unless they have some sort of accident, or if they get some sort of unusual illness. > > Most healthcare is done in doctor’s offices, diagnostic clinics and various treatment centers. Yeah. I’m not sure what the exact figures are but I think about 15-35% of medical costs are due to hospitals. Like you said the rest are outpatient care, pharmaceuticals, long term care, laboratories, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospital-income-from-where/830922/8 "2019-03-13T22:09:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > FYI, hospitals probably aren’t a good indicator of where healthcare money is spent in the US- most people won’t see the inside of a hospital as a patient until they’re very old, unless they have some sort of accident, or if they get some sort of unusual illness. > > Most healthcare is done in doctor’s offices, diagnostic clinics and various treatment centers. Maybe it varies by region, but around here many (possibly most) outpatient surgeries are performed in a hospital, which conveniently has an Outpatient Surgery department. (For example, Mr. Middon and I have had between us 4 colonoscopies, all of which were performed in a hospital.) Emergency rooms are part of the hospital, too – and there are treatments that can’t be performed in an urgent care center but that don’t require being admitted to the hospital. Because of this, I’m thinking maybe you meant not that most patients don’t see the inside of a hospital, but that most patients aren’t admitted to the hospital. But it’s still the hospital that gets part of the money that is paid for treatment. Heck, when I see my doctor in her or his office in the building associated with the hospital, I get a bill for the hospital’s “facility charge.”