As of the July, 2022, release via CMS

LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL

CMS id: 220063
295 VARNUM AVE, LOWELL MA 1854. County: MIDDLESEX
System: WELLFORCE INC
CBSA: Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH

The 390-bed, acute-care hospital had $-37,018,589 in net service to patients*, with a total profit margin of 1.71794% in fiscal year 2021, the latest year available.
It spent 1.96% of its operating expenses on uncompensated care and reported $16,228,324 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	367 118	367 118	367 119.5	367 118	367 119
Total beds Median	407 162	407 162	407 162	407 162	390 163.5
FTEs Median	2,523.58 788.06	2,636.47 793.42	2,617.56 806.03	2,518.10 787.61	2,424.00 804.34

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	437,684,000 150,932,746	454,220,000 158,950,878	445,345,203 168,696,998	412,362,233 163,454,693	456,513,625 186,589,412
Operating expenses Median	452,253,137 149,311,209	458,079,395 156,110,414	459,766,103 164,890,568	470,797,631 166,516,854	493,532,214 180,120,888
Net income from service 2 patients (NS2P) ? Median	-14,569,137 -964,173	-3,859,395 -643,601.5	-14,420,900 -116,254	-58,435,398 -5,025,862	-37,018,589 -1,284,564
NS2P margin ? Median	-3.33% -0.62	-0.85% -0.29	-3.24% 0.18	-14.17% -5.07	-8.11% -0.88

Range* of Net Service to Patient (NS2P) margins

= NS2P margin for LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL 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	14,080,148 5,089,215	27,037,916 4,572,541	30,440,872 5,268,134	72,609,097 13,092,619	49,922,276 12,369,236
⊳ Line 6: Contributions ? ⊳ Median	0 224,999	941,794 199,009	326,154 206,870.5	625,040 194,343	544,672 249,496
⊳ Line 7: Investments ? ⊳ Median	0 299,524	2,255,320 188,688.5	2,065,890 370,813	2,546,134 309,361.5	1,221,396 375,329
⊳ Line 8: Revenue from telephone service	NULL	NULL	NULL	NULL	NULL
⊳ Line 9: Revenue from tv and radio	--	--	--	--	--
⊳ Line 10: Purchase discounts	659,932	649,906	435,392	350,887	601,423
⊳ 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	2,208	2,361	2,355	19,244	8,145
⊳ Line 19: Tuition (fees, sale of textbooks, uniforms, etc.)	12,242	14,985	540	842	57
⊳ 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	13,405,766	23,173,550	27,610,541	69,066,950	47,546,583
Total income ? Median	-488,989 6,586,430	23,178,521 6,767,106	16,019,972 8,419,950	14,173,699 8,094,175	12,903,687 15,162,888
Non-operating expenses Median	0 146,289.5	0 164,857	1,933,823 89,880.5	1,740,085 106,761	4,203,437 31,473.5
Net income Median	-488,989 6,043,842	23,178,521 5,845,112	14,086,149 7,606,259	12,433,614 7,283,041	8,700,250 14,957,241
Net margin Median	-0.10824% 4.62%	4.81624% 4.42%	2.96061% 5.16%	2.56378% 5.2%	1.71794% 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 LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL 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	76,302,891 23,241,334	76,239,698 23,709,545	78,983,162 24,248,380	71,858,856 22,858,541	70,615,290 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	76,302,891 21,577,146	76,239,698 22,041,594	78,983,162 22,722,063	71,858,856 21,570,441	70,615,290 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	40,873,742 11,160,864	42,868,871 11,987,345	47,526,796 12,926,866	42,646,303 11,884,480	44,243,302 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	40,873,742 10,918,923	42,868,871 11,706,976	47,526,796 12,615,917	42,646,303 11,458,116	44,243,302 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	0 3,284,314	0 3,250,551	0 3,386,837	0 3,360,806	0 3,508,953
Disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) Median	3,163,678 594,888	3,167,967 595,761	3,237,738 577,894	2,891,196 542,168	2,665,458 549,667
Outlier Median	1,311,057 582,572	1,439,556 538,116	108,532 212,434	165,034 126,559	204,864 139,139

Uncompensated care

Item	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Medicaid shortfall Median	498,178 3,662,910	0 3,730,911	6,642,855 4,081,319	11,125,045 4,643,908	16,228,324 4,389,147
Charity care Median	3,254,473 2,654,636	6,298,347 2,940,659	6,217,659 3,380,215	7,498,150 3,488,738	6,307,339 3,233,405
Uncompensated care (UCC) Median	6,082,789 5,147,790	11,125,046 5,337,617	11,439,892 5,711,082	12,364,740 5,923,418	9,681,243 5,508,107
UCC as a % of operating expenses Median	1.34% 3.24	2.43% 3.12	2.49% 3.21	2.63% 3.3	1.96% 2.86
Total shortfall/UCC Median	6,580,967 9,489,989	11,125,046 9,424,297	18,082,747 10,120,158	23,489,785 11,171,337	25,909,567 10,133,851

Labor costs

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Total salaries Median	176,798,777 52,142,039	188,612,736 54,485,252	189,304,156 57,395,589	188,180,925 58,830,919	191,541,313 61,722,907
Salaries as a % of operating expenses Median	39.09 36.68	41.17 36.56	41.17 36.37	39.97 35.93	38.81 35.24
Intern, resident salaries* Median	0 2,598,592	0 2,686,824	0 2,753,773	0 2,937,156	0 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	1,451,055 1,449,244	2,196,186 1,475,986	1,414,800 1,563,078	2,241,856 1,721,954	5,369,621 2,991,828
Contract hours, direct-care Median	21,473.00 22,725	31,332.50 23,018.5	23,322.00 24,503.48	29,565.00 25,026.5	73,925.00 33,786
Contract wages, direct-care Median	67.58 64.67	70.09 64.53	60.66 65.06	75.83 68.97	72.64 88.94

* in an approved program

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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.