After years of financial troubles, top UConn Health center officials will now be analyzing a series of financial options that call for forming partnerships to attract more patients beyond its relatively small hospital in Farmington. Seeking to improve the health center’s financial future, Gov. Ned Lamont hired a respected health care consulting firm that spent nearly six months in seeking the best solutions for the center’s future.
The health care consulting and investment banking company, known as Cain Brothers, released a detailed, 104-page report Friday that said that UConn needs to generate more money from patient care in order to compete in the health care world of the future. John Dempsey Hospital, outpatient offices in places like Simsbury, and the related faculty physician group have “generated cash flow losses averaging $140 million annually over the past four years before any state transfers,” the report said. “Recent accounting changes beginning in 2024, however, will result in materially reduced fringe benefit expenses for UConn Health because those costs are being absorbed by the state.
” The report added, “UConn Health will still generate a loss after this accounting shift. UConn Health’s patient care enterprise is subscale, unprofitable and unable to financially support the academic mission nor fund recruiting or research for the medical school. Financial support from the state has been necessary to fund both the academic mission as well as losse.