Revenue Drops 26% at Texas Presbyterian in Wake of Ebola
By Texas Health Presbyterian has taken a huge revenue hit after questionable handling of three Ebola cases this month.
- In a sharp lesson on the importance of reputation for hospitals nationwide, Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas has seen its patient revenues decline by a whopping 26% in the month of October after the facility’s less-than-optimal handling of the first Ebola patient in the United States. Patients have deserted the hospital’s emergency room, which saw half its normal volume in the past twenty days, and the $8.1 million loss is compounded by the fact that the virus can cost up to $24,000 per day to treat – a sum that the hospital may be forced to write off.
Texas Health Resources, the parent company of the Dallas hospital, believes it has enough cash on hand to cover the expenses, including up to half a million dollars for the care of Thomas Eric Duncan, without dipping too deeply into its $3.3 billion funds. But the hospital accounts for 17% of the health system’s annual revenue, the Wall Street Journal reports, and there’s no telling how long the reputational hit of Duncan’s death, and the subsequent infection of two members of the nursing staff who attended him, will last.
Part of the losses came from the fact that ambulances were diverted to other facilities for about eight days in mid-October, but skittish patients have been fleeing the hospital at record rates, despite its formally sterling reputation. Patient volumes have dropped by 15% overall, with surgical cases seeing a 25% decline. Some patients cancelled planned procedures and follow-up visits, while many expectant mothers chose other facilities to give birth.
“There’s an Ebola-fear epidemic that has evolved,” said John Bertrand, an obstetrician who practices at the hospital. A private practice within Presbyterian’s OBGYN unit has seen 20% of its patient visits diverted or cancelled, a nurse said, even though the practice is located in a separate building.
While the two nurses affected by the virus are doing well and there have been no new cases in Texas, patients remain afraid of the deadly illness that continues to ravage Western African nations, and their fear has been fanned by constant media attention – as well as the initial mistakes of the hospital. Conflicting statements about the role of Texas Presbyterian’s EHR in Duncan’s botched diagnosis have led to confusion and mistrust that the hospital will need to work hard to repair.
The incident clearly illustrates the important relationship between community reputation and the financial health of an organization. While such severe wallops to a hospital’s public perception are rare and difficult to prepare for, organizations may be able to insulate their bankrolls from similarly disastrous changes by ensuring that communications to media are clear, consistent, and truthful before they hit the airwaves, and that hospital staff members are adequately trained in disaster preparedness, infectious disease control, and crisis response.
