All Featured Insights

Hospital rating downgrades declined in 2025 while the number of upgrades increased, resulting in a lower ratio of downgrades to upgrades and tempering higher downgrade activity in recent years.

In the ongoing debate over healthcare costs, attention often centers on the price of drugs, hospital stays and payers. But behind the scenes, a quieter set of figures has been growing steadily: non-clinical expenses.

With extension of the 2017 tax cuts identified as a key priority for the incoming Trump administration, offsetting expense actions will be needed to avoid increasing the federal deficit. Hospital leaders should be prepared for potential cuts to both the Medicaid program and the enhanced ACA subsidies enacted in 2021.

The new generation of weight-loss drugs has the potential to help reduce prevalence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, two of the most prevalent chronic conditions. How might that affect hospital operations and capital and financial planning?

Since the late 1980s, financial planning has been a core focus of Kaufman Hall’s work. A recent leadership change emphasized the importance of financial planning to the for-profit corporate world. It should be given similar priority in the not-for-profit hospital universe.

In conversations with hospitals and health system leadership across the U.S., most management teams express the same goal: get back to breakeven. For many, the road to breakeven will be bumpy with gains and setbacks along the way.

All organizations, including America’s hospitals and health systems, need to confront the fact that no strategic plan lasts forever.

Although lifting the Public Health Emergency (PHE) sends a hopeful message in the country’s battle against the coronavirus, phasing out this federal funding will bring new financial challenges to a battle-weary hospital industry.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that my focus tends toward either hospital operations or healthcare policy. In my latest blog, I want to change the pace and talk about the value of a well-planned and well-executed Board retreat.

Explore how hospitals and health systems are faring in an increasingly productized healthcare marketplace.

When the nation is unprepared for catastrophic public health emergencies, the consequences are as real as they can get. As we saw with COVID-19, many people died while the country’s public health apparatus struggled to catch up, and America’s hospitals, jumped into the breach.

We have entered a financial moment when paying attention to the sunk cost fallacy will be central to maintaining, or recovering, the financial, clinical, and mission strength of America’s hospitals.