Healthcare companies and organizations are about to confront with a “watershed” 2009, a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s Health Research Institute reveals.

Medical facilities throughout the United States are making great efforts in order to stay afloat amid the financial crisis, even though many of them have had pecuniary issues for a long time, Medicare, Medicaid and other such government health programs often being the ones to be criticized.

The economy already started to have an impact on the health industry and the effects will be more noticeable in the coming year. Despite the fact that the health care industry “historically has been less vulnerable to economic downturns than other industries, the disrupted economy will hit healthcare in 2009,” PricewaterhouseCoopers informed.
 
Many hospitals have filed for bankruptcy. Examples include North Oakland Medical Centers in Pontiac, Mich.; Charlotte, N.C.-based Hospital Partners of America; Michael Reese Medical Center in Chicago and Associated Healthcare Systems Inc.

Furthermore, numerous hospitals lay off employees, reducing the program of part-timers and the use of more-expensive temporary nurses hired through specialized agencies.

In order to continue being paid, healthcare providers will have to enhance performance and to document it. As PricewaterhouseCoope stated, Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies are more and more basing reimbursement on such performance requirements.

Health insurance prices have become unreasonable and made employers and employees to drop insurance. The number of uninsured American people is rising speedily. It is estimated that 25 million adults in the U.S. have no health insurance, up 60 percent from 2003. As a result, payments to hospitals could be affected.