Academic health centers

Academic medical centers will struggle in the near future, according to Moody’s Investor Services. While academic medical centers still have a number of strengths – offering higher-end services, high demand for their inpatient services, and generally strong cash flow margins – they also face a number of challenges that make life more difficult for them in a value-based payment world.  Among those challenges, most notably, are higher costs associated with teaching and research, higher-acuity patients, and payment pressure from insurers.  Another challenge:  the shrinking gap between academic medical center hospitals and others as more care is delivered on an outpatient [...]