Medicare payment in January helps MD Anderson reduce its operating losses

MD Anderson Cancer Center reduced its year-to-date operating loss to $77.3 million in January, the fifth month of the fiscal year.

In January, the cumulative operating loss was $169.4 million. The loss shrunk because in January MD Anderson booked about $63.4 million in a settlement from Medicare, which allowed the cancer center to claim a portion of its expenses for implementing the Epic system.

Due to increased clinical activity by about 10 percent from December to January, operating revenues were around $28.7 million. This the first monthly positive margin since Epic’s rollout in March 2016.

In an interview with The Cancer Letter, MD Anderson Chief Operating Officer Steve Hahn said the installation, which he described as the largest in the history of Epic, changed over the cancer center’s inpatient, outpatient and billing systems at the same time.

Hahn, deputy to the president, said the installation of Epic exposed and exacerbated inefficiencies in the cancer center’s operations.

The text of the interview with Hahn appears here.

The cancer center’s financials appear below:

MD Anderson Cancer Center Monthly Financials,
September 2016 to January 2017

Byline

Paul Goldberg

Editor & Publisher

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