Center for Open Government: $19.4 million in CARES Act funds pumped into struggling Jewish Hospital
Financial documents obtained by the Center for Open Government earlier this year revealed Jewish Hospital lost $11.1 million during the first six months of the fiscal year. Therefore, it came as a surprise that the most recent documents provided by UofL Health show a huge swing by Jewish towards profitability:
Jewish Hospital continues to have “unfavorable volume statistics,” missing their budgeted figures for the first nine months of the year by nearly 11,000. Volume at all of UofL Health’s hospitals, including the flagship University Medical Center (UMC), are down in a major way due to COVID.
How did Jewish Hospital’s financial position improve so dramatically in three months? We emailed UofL Health earlier today to ask for help understanding the latest figures. If they provide a response, we will update this post with it.
Some information within the latest documents suggest federal CARES Act funding is playing a role in the turnaround. Here’s what we’ve found combing through the documents from UofL Health’s April 28th board meeting:
March YTD EBITDA for all of UofL Health’s hospitals was $110.2 million, which is $33.2 million in excess of the budget of $77.0 million — primarily due to CARES Act income of $30.6 million for UMC, $6 million for Jewish and $13.4 million released from CARES Act reserves for Jewish. (Link)
In March, total revenue at Jewish Hospital exceeded the budget by $6.6 million due to CARES Act revenue of $5.4 million but operating expenses were unfavorable to budget by $3.9 million. (Link)
UofL Health had $350.6 million in total cash reserves at the end of March. $17.5 million in state loan funds were transferred to the “operating section” in April for capital expenditures.** (Link)
UofL Health has received $135.6 million in CARES Act payments as of 3/31/2021. (Link)
In June 2019, UofL President Neeli Bendapudi said acquiring Jewish Hospital without a partner was too big of a risk for the University of Louisville to undertake. UofL then embarked on a lobbying campaign in Frankfort to secure a taxpayer-backed loan to support their eventual purchase of the failing hospital.
The $35 million loan to UofL Health is financed through bonded debt. The debt service for the loan costs taxpayers $3.07 million annually. Up to half of the loan can be forgiven by the Cabinet for Economic Development beginning in 2025.
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**Note: in our email to UofL Health we also asked them to provide details on how the state loan funds have been spent. We will update this post if/when UofL Health replies.