COVID-related financial losses at Mass General Brigham

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

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Mass General Brigham reports COVID-related financial losses not as bad as expected

By Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Globe Staff,Updated December 11, 2020, 3:02 p.m.

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The state’s largest hospital system on Friday reported the worst financial loss in its history while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic — but still ended the fiscal year in better shape than expected.

Mass General Brigham, formerly known as Partners HealthCare, lost $351 million on operations in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. In 2019, the system recorded a gain of $382 million.

The loss, however, is not as great as projected, thanks in part to an infusion of federal aid and patients returning to hospitals in large numbers after the first COVID surge receded.

“2020 is like no other year,” said Peter Markell, chief financial officer at Mass General Brigham, which includes Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and several community hospitals. “At the end of the day, we came out of this better than we thought we might.”

Total revenue for the year remained relatively stable at about $14 billion.

When the pandemic first hit Massachusetts in March, hospitals across the state suddenly experienced sharp drops in revenue because they canceled so much non-COVID care to respond to the crisis at hand. They also faced new costs related to COVID, including the personal protective equipment needed to keep health care workers safe from infection.

Federal aid helped to make up much of the losses, including $546 million in grant money that went to Mass General Brigham. The nonprofit health system also slashed capital expenses in half, by about $550 million, and temporarily froze employee wages and cut their retirement benefits.

Among the unusual new costs for Mass General Brigham this year was the expense of building a field hospital, Boston Hope, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The project cost $15 million to $20 million, Markell said, and Mass General Brigham is working to recoup those costs from government agencies.

The second surge of COVID, now underway, could hit hospitals’ bottom lines again, though Markell expects a smaller impact this time. One reason is because hospitals are trying to treat most of the patients who need care for conditions other than COVID even while treating growing numbers of COVID patients. In the spring, hospitals canceled vastly more appointments and procedures in anticipation of the first wave of COVID.

Mass General Brigham hospitals were treating more than 300 COVID patients on Friday, among the more than 1,600 hospitalized across the state.

Steve Walsh, president of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, said hospitals across the state will need more federal aid as they continue battling COVID into the new year.

“The financial toll of COVID-19 has been felt by every hospital and health care organization in the Commonwealth,” he said. “Those challenges will continue during 2021.”

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Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached at priyanka.mccluskey@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal.

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/11/business/mass-general-brigham-reports-covid-related-financial-losses-better-than-expected/?p1=Article_Inline_Related_Box

Integration of Mass General Hospital and Brigham Women’s Hospital was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

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At Mass General Brigham, a sweeping effort to unify hospitals and shed old rivalries

Executives say greater cooperation is necessary to stay relevant in a dynamic and competitive health care industry. But the aggressive push to integrate is stirring tensions and sowing discontent among doctors and hospital leaders.

By Priyanka Dayal McCluskey and Larry Edelman Globe Staff and Globe Columnist,Updated March 27, 2021, 6:15 p.m.125

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/27/business/mass-general-brigham-sweeping-effort-unify-hospitals-shed-old-rivalries/?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter

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The work of integration was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As patients flooded hospitals last spring, Mass General Brigham — not each of its individual hospitals — set pandemic policies, from what kind of personal protective equipment health care providers should wear, to which visitors were allowed inside hospitals, to how employees would be paid if they were out sick with the virus.

During the winter surge of COVID, Mass General Brigham officials closely tracked beds across their system and transferred patients daily from one hospital to another to ensure that no one facility became overwhelmed.

And, in the early months of the pandemic, the company dropped the name Partners, which meant little to patients, and unveiled a new brand to reflect the strength of its greatest assets, MGH and the Brigham.

Officials at the nonprofit health system have instructeddepartment heads across their hospitals to coordinate better, so, for example, if a patient needs surgery at the Brigham but is facing a long wait, they can refer that patient to another site within Mass General Brigham.

Some executives want patients, eventually, to be able to go online and book appointments at any Mass General Brigham facility, as easily as they make reservations for dinner or a hotel.

Walls described it like this: “How do we put things together that make things better and easier for patients, and leave alone things that are better where they are?

“We’re not going to push things together that don’t fit together,” he said.

And yet the aggressive pursuit of “systemness,” as executives call it, is taking a toll. Physicians and hospital leaders are struggling with the loss of control over their institutions and worried that the new era of top-down management threatens to homogenize a group of hospitals with different cultures and identities.

Veteran physicians and leaders have been surprised and upset by the power shift that is stripping them of the ability to make key decisions and unhappy with abrupt changes they feel are occurring with little discussion. Most are uncomfortable sharing their concerns publicly.

“If you’re not on the train, you’re getting run over by the train,” said one former Mass General Brigham executive who requested anonymity in orderto speak openly. “It’s not an environment to invite debate.”

Amid the restructuring, senior executives are departing in droves. They include the CEO of the MGH physicians group, Dr. Timothy Ferris; Brigham and Women’s president Dr. Elizabeth Nabel; chief financial officer of the system, Peter Markell; Cooley Dickinson Hospital president Joanne Marqusee; and president of Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, David Storto.

Some also fear the internal discord could hinder Mass General Brigham’s ability to attract talented leaders.

Top executives acknowledge there is angst — “Change is hard,” Klibanski said — but are pushing ahead.

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