As of the July, 2022, release via CMS

BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER

CMS id: 220031
1 BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER PLACE, BOSTON MA 2118. County: SUFFOLK
System: --
CBSA: Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH

The 428-bed, acute-care hospital had $-748,832,046 in net service to patients*, with a total profit margin of 0.80053% in fiscal year 2021, the latest year available.
It spent 5.01% of its operating expenses on uncompensated care and reported $21,047,399 in Medicaid shortfall.

* For more about Net Service to Patients and operating revenue, please the finance section below.

Note: Medians are from acute-care hospitals with "complete" fiscal years. For more about how we calculated medians and cost reports in general, please click here.

Details

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
# of days in fyear	365	365	365	366	365
Ownership	nfp	nfp	nfp	nfp	nfp
Acute beds Median	361 118	361 118	336 119.5	336 118	365 119
Total beds Median	433 162	432 162	399 162	399 162	428 163.5
FTEs Median	5,674.00 788.06	6,026.43 793.42	6,308.48 806.03	6,704.60 787.61	7,101.50 804.34

Finances As they appear in worksheet G3 of the cost reports.

Note: Net Patient Revenue is considered operating revenue, which means Net Service to Patients is considered operating profit. Click here for more about cost report financials

Hospital cost reports are an enormously complicated dataset. There are whole organizations and an offical CMS vendor dedicated to helping researchers work with the data.
It's important to understand that hospital financials in cost reports are not organized in the same as other sources such as annual financial reports to bond holders.

The biggest difference is the concept of operating revenue and profit. Net Service to patients (NS2P), which is the sum of net patient revenue minus operating expenses, is considered the equivalent of operating profit according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC). See the last paragraph of "Primary Data Sources" on page 55 of Annual Analysis of Disproportionate Share Hospital Allotments to States (PDF).

That would make Net Patient Revenue = operating revenue.

All this makes things challenging when comparing what's reported in cost reports to other sources. It becomes clearer when you consider that, beyond the purpose of reimbursement, cost reports are a tool for policymakers trying to understand the financial situation of a hospital doing the tasks specific to hospitals.

In other words, while a facility with a division that formulates drugs might include earnings from that as operating revenue in their corporate annual result, this is not central to the operations of a hospital caring for patients and so it is counted as "other income." (See below the financials section for more on "other income")

The healthcare consulting firm HMP, in a former partnership with Modern Healthcare, did develop a formula for estimating operating revenue closer to what one might find in other sources. We no longer use this for the following reasons:

The measure was not widely used beyond HMP and Modern Healthcare. Many hospitals had their own internal estimates of operating revenue and profit.
Because of this, there was confusion when reporting operating results for individual hospitals. There was often pushback when a facility's internal numbers did not match what Modern Healthcare was reporting.
The formula includes revenue from portions of the "other income" section, which may also include non-operating revenue. HMP themselves point out in a caveat on their site that they cannot exclude all non-operating revenue from their measure.

HMP's operating measure has proven problematic in the past for our reporting and the partnership with them ended years ago. It's best to not use a measure that we alone cannot defend.

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Net patient revenue ? Median	1,089,390,000 150,932,746	1,150,633,000 158,950,878	1,131,959,001 168,696,998	1,144,278,529 163,454,693	1,165,411,708 186,589,412
Operating expenses Median	1,303,296,534 149,311,209	1,443,195,077 156,110,414	1,651,224,334 164,890,568	1,785,191,127 166,516,854	1,914,243,754 180,120,888
Net income from service 2 patients (NS2P) ? Median	-213,906,534 -964,173	-292,562,077 -643,601.5	-519,265,333 -116,254	-640,912,598 -5,025,862	-748,832,046 -1,284,564
NS2P margin ? Median	-19.64% -0.62	-25.43% -0.29	-45.87% 0.18	-56.01% -5.07	-64.25% -0.88

Range* of Net Service to Patient (NS2P) margins

= NS2P margin for BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER compared to all** acute-care hospitals, from CMS cost reports.
Note: NS2P is considered operating margin by MACPAC. The chart below is interactive: click or touch to see more.

* Data range does not show outliers, which fall beyond the minimum and maximum of the range.
** From cost reports with complete fiscal years. Number of acute-care hospitals available to calculate medians:

2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
3,157	3,092	3,050	3,052	2,566

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Other income* Median Click here to show/hide details	226,685,000 5,089,215	330,809,000 4,572,541	529,884,000 5,268,134	870,616,309 13,092,619	764,279,822 12,369,236
⊳ Line 6: Contributions ? ⊳ Median	0 224,999	0 199,009	0 206,870.5	0 194,343	0 249,496
⊳ Line 7: Investments ? ⊳ Median	0 299,524	0 188,688.5	0 370,813	0 309,361.5	0 375,329
⊳ Line 8: Revenue from telephone service	NULL	NULL	NULL	NULL	NULL
⊳ Line 9: Revenue from tv and radio	--	--	--	--	--
⊳ Line 10: Purchase discounts	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 11: Rebates and refunds of expenses	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 12: Parking lot receipts	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 13: Revenue from laundry and linen service	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 14: Revenue from meals sold to emplyees and guests	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 15: Revenue from rental of living quarters	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 16: Revenue from sale of medical and surgical supplies	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 17: Revenue from sale of drugs to other than patients	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 18: Revenue from sale of medical records and abstracts	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 19: Tuition (fees, sale of textbooks, uniforms, etc.)	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 20: Revenue from gifts, flowers, coffee shops, canteen	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 21: Rental of vending machines	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 22: Rental of hospital space	0	0	0	0	0
⊳ Line 23: Gov appropriations ? ⊳ Median	0 1,017,693	0 983,261.5	0 1,173,286	0 1,987,202	0 1,597,664
⊳ Sum Line 24	226,685,000	330,809,000	529,884,000	870,616,309	764,279,822
Total income ? Median	12,778,466 6,586,430	38,246,923 6,767,106	10,618,667 8,419,950	229,703,711 8,094,175	15,447,776 15,162,888
Non-operating expenses Median	0 146,289.5	0 164,857	0 89,880.5	4,600,000 106,761	0 31,473.5
Net income Median	12,778,466 6,043,842	38,246,923 5,845,112	10,618,667 7,606,259	225,103,711 7,283,041	15,447,776 14,957,241
Net margin Median	0.97095% 4.62%	2.58174% 4.42%	0.63897% 5.16%	11.17198% 5.2%	0.80053% 9.25%

* About "Other income": Other income, or line 25 in worksheet G3, is the sum of lines 6 through 24. It includes three lines that are considered non-operating revenue - contributions, investments and government appropriations. Medians are included for these three lines. It also contains items that are not central to providing healthcare, such as revenue from parking or gift shops.
"Sum Line 24" is a special case. Called "Other (specify)" in the cost reports, CMS allows for this line to be "subscripted," or divided into sublines like 002400, 002401, 002402. And hospitals do that, up to 100 lines, to detail income (and sometimes negative returns) that are otherwise not covered in the previous "other" lines. Therefore, "Sum Line 24" is the sum of all the lines 24.

Range* of total profit (loss) margins

= Total margin for BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER compared to all** acute-care hospitals, from CMS cost reports.
The chart below is interactive: click or touch to see more.

2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
3,157	3,092	3,050	3,052	2,566

Medicare revenue

Inpatient and outpatient revenue

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
All inpatient revenue Median Click here to show/hide details	146,814,549 23,241,334	150,337,216 23,709,545	165,227,893 24,248,380	154,425,404 22,858,541	178,367,631 23,620,613
"All inpatient revenue" is made up of any Medicare payments for routine inpatient, swingbed SNFs, TEFRA, IPF, IRF, inpatient long-term care, CAH and inpatient SNF facilities. Medians are only calculated when there are sufficient facilities reporting revenue.
⊳ Routine inpatient revenue ⊳ Median	146,814,549 21,577,146	150,337,216 22,041,594	165,227,893 22,722,063	154,425,404 21,570,441	178,367,631 22,140,684
⊳ Swingbeds ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --
⊳ Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act payments (TEFRA) ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --
⊳ Inpatient psychiatric facility (IPF) ⊳ Median	0 1,845,420	0 1,757,392	0 1,738,842	0 1,510,463	0 1,393,140
⊳ Inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) ⊳ Median	0 3,535,627	0 3,746,588	0 3,782,288	0 3,865,578	0 3,983,889
⊳ Long-term care hospital (LTCH) ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --
⊳ Critical-access hospitals ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --
⊳ Skilled-nursing facilities (SNF) ⊳ Median	0 1,203,033	0 1,215,295	0 1,313,657	0 1,365,298	0 1,179,746
All outpatient revenue Median Click here to show/hide details	72,753,558 11,160,864	73,851,484 11,987,345	70,522,381 12,926,866	57,992,441 11,884,480	60,528,938 13,145,163
"All outpatient revenue" is made up of any payments for routine outpatient, HHA, CMHC, rural health and other federally-qualified health clinics. Medians are only calculated when there are sufficient facilities reporting revenue.
⊳ Routine outpatient revenue ⊳ Median	72,753,558 10,918,923	73,851,484 11,706,976	70,522,381 12,615,917	57,992,441 11,458,116	60,528,938 12,776,716
⊳ Home Health agencies (HHA) ⊳ Median	0 1,282,808	0 1,407,728	0 1,341,512	0 1,407,046	0 1,476,867
⊳ Community mental health clinics (CMHC) ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --
⊳ Rural health clinics ⊳ Median	0 618,038	0 697,279	0 690,232	0 684,010	0 670,558
⊳ Other federally qualified health clinics ⊳ Median	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --	0 --

Other payments

Item	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Graduate Medical Education (GME) Median	43,355,033 3,284,314	42,053,539 3,250,551	44,958,629 3,386,837	41,781,203 3,360,806	49,745,423 3,508,953
Disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) Median	8,351,830 594,888	8,195,874 595,761	8,095,745 577,894	6,720,411 542,168	8,129,940 549,667
Outlier Median	5,971,123 582,572	5,859,814 538,116	1,555,413 212,434	862,070 126,559	767,012 139,139

Uncompensated care

Item	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Medicaid shortfall Median	0 3,662,910	49,573,252 3,730,911	106,999,467 4,081,319	73,069,600 4,643,908	21,047,399 4,389,147
Charity care Median	68,737,925 2,654,636	53,895,658 2,940,659	52,041,191 3,380,215	84,395,908 3,488,738	82,375,693 3,233,405
Uncompensated care (UCC) Median	93,010,378 5,147,790	74,886,582 5,337,617	63,210,967 5,711,082	100,291,380 5,923,418	95,990,262 5,508,107
UCC as a % of operating expenses Median	7.14% 3.24	5.19% 3.12	3.83% 3.21	5.62% 3.3	5.01% 2.86
Total shortfall/UCC Median	93,010,378 9,489,989	124,459,834 9,424,297	170,210,434 10,120,158	173,360,980 11,171,337	117,037,661 10,133,851

Labor costs

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Total salaries Median	493,688,452 52,142,039	516,358,057 54,485,252	586,685,469 57,395,589	574,575,890 58,830,919	588,060,600 61,722,907
Salaries as a % of operating expenses Median	31.60 36.68	35.78 36.56	35.53 36.37	32.19 35.93	30.72 35.24
Intern, resident salaries* Median	32,660,178 2,598,592	33,964,733 2,686,824	34,999,278 2,753,773	36,918,193 2,937,156	37,690,509 2,909,848
Contract intern, resident salaries* Median	0 1,251,927	0 1,186,494	0 1,204,885	0 1,279,653	0 1,469,317
Contract adjusted salaries, direct-care Median	11,267,282 1,449,244	13,086,399 1,475,986	15,585,871 1,563,078	15,497,153 1,721,954	18,447,592 2,991,828
Contract hours, direct-care Median	153,659.00 22,725	170,894.00 23,018.5	193,023.00 24,503.48	166,677.00 25,026.5	151,704.00 33,786
Contract wages, direct-care Median	73.33 64.67	76.58 64.53	80.75 65.06	92.98 68.97	121.60 88.94

* in an approved program

Return to top

Cost reports are self-reported by the facility, are subject to revision and should be considered preliminary.

* Net Service to patients (NS2P) equals net patient revenue minus operating expenses. NS2P is considered the equivalent of operating profit according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC). See the last paragraph of "Primary Data Sources" on page 55 of Annual Analysis of Disproportionate Share Hospital Allotments to States (PDF).

About medians

Medians are calculated from reports with "complete" fiscal years, or reports with fiscal years of at least 300 days and no more than 420 days.

In cases where there are fewer than 50 values reported, medians are not calculated. For childrens' hospitals, it's when fewer than 20 are reported.

Web app by Tim Broderick | email.