Are the nation's hospitals facing a capital crisis?

Are hospitals facing a capital crisis? Wall Street is taking a long, hard look at hospitals' bottom lines--and many analysts don't like what they see. Hospitals' increasing reliance on long-term debt, lower debt-service coverage ratios, and weakening performance indicators all signal a potentially volatile situation for some sectors of the field. Which hospitals are at risk? Experts point to hospitals in Southern California and New York. But others say that hospitals in moderate-size cities with 250 beds and $40 million or more in long-term debt are vulnerable. However, 40 percent of the 600 CEOs who responded to our Hamilton/KSA survey agree that the continued erosion of reimbursement will require a government bailout similar to the savings and loan industry. "A great deal depends on public policy," says Darrel Brownell, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, Memorial Health Services, a two-hospital system based in Long Beach, CA. "The government has the ability to maintain the industry in a stable condition, or it has the ability to force it into a bailout situation."