Community Health says increased denials ‘relatively broad based’

On the company’s earnings call, Community Health (CYH) executives stated in part, according to a transcript: “You know, we have been experiencing increased denials throughout the year as most of that claims activity is coming out of the prior year because, you know, there’s quite a tail on the actual denial or appeal process. So what we saw in this quarter was an acceleration off of the run rate that we had in the first and second quarter. And that’s the $10 million delta Kevin called out. It was that’s the incremental increase that we did not expect that bounced in the third quarter.” When asked in follow-up if this reflects broad based activity across most of payers, or if this is this more concentrated among a few, the company replied: “It’s relatively broad based.” Other publicly traded companies in the hospital space include HCA Healthcare (HCA), Tenet Healthcare (THC) and Universal Health (UHS).