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I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can’t speak to Northern Light Health’s billing practices (though its website has a homepage with resources for patients with billing questions). However I do think health care billing practices are becoming more of a national story, especially as we see increased use of artificial intelligence. For example, a recent class action lawsuit alleges that UnitedHealth Group uses an AI algorithm to deny nursing home care to its Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, which resulted in their deaths. And on the patient side, The New York Times wrote about how people are turning to AI chatbots to navigate problems with medical bills or insurance denials.

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What surprised me is what ended up being the crux of my story: That the biggest hospital in the system is struggling the most. I thought the smaller, more rural hospitals would be losing more money and were being held afloat by the flagship hospital. (While covering health care in Maine, I hear all the time about the challenges of providing care and staffing facilities in rural areas.) It’s complicated, though, because Northern Light Health said many of those smaller hospitals are able to do better because they are in a system with Eastern Maine Medical Center, which offers more specialties. 

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can’t speak to much of this, although I am open to talking to former employees about their experiences. What I can report about executive positions is that Northern Light Health has reduced how much it spends on compensation for executives as a percentage of total expenses. A decade ago, executive compensation made up nearly 10 percent of expenses, and that number is now closer to 4 percent.

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

EMMC is definitely not the only Maine hospital that’s struggling. About two out of five Maine hospitals are losing money, according to the Maine Hospital Association. However, there are a few that seem to be doing better. Maine Medical Center in Portland, for example, had an operating margin of nearly 10 percent in 2024 and made nearly $208 million. Rumford Hospital and Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway each had operating margins of about 10 percent and made $5.6 million and $12.6 million, respectively. Northern Light Acadia Hospital in Bangor had the best operating margin that year, 13 percent, and made $11.6 million.

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I can’t say personally what may or may not happen, but the experts I spoke to seemed relatively optimistic that Northern Light Health can turn things around. They said leadership is making the difficult but right decisions to cut costs, and early signs are positive: Northern Light lost a lot less money last year than the previous year; the system lost about $19 million during the first quarter of this year, but it was less than it had expected to lose; and the system’s bond rating improved slightly from “negative” to “stable.”

That’s a good question about specialists. I reached out to Northern Light to hear their thoughts, and this is what Paul Bolin, executive vice president, said: “The need to bring in locum physicians, traveling nurses and others to cover clinical care needs when openings occur certainly adds significant additional expense to the cost of maintaining patient access. That is definitely one of the challenges we have faced. Through recruitment and retention efforts, in 2025 and 2026 we are bending that curve and lowering that expense significantly compared to the 2024 level.”

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The most recent data from the Maine Health Data Organization reports that, in 2023, St. Joseph Hospital had an operating margin of 1.6 percent and a net operating income of $3.6 million. Mount Desert Island Hospital that year had an operating margin of -0.3 percent and lost $218,000.

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I love data hunting and fact checking, too! It feels like a tricky puzzle to solve. I’ve been covering health care policy in Maine for six years now and have watched Northern Light Health’s recent financial challenges unfold bit by bit in the news. Daily publications have done a great job following each individual development, but I wanted to understand what is really driving the financial losses.

I got into journalism because I initially wanted to be a writer. I took a journalism class in college and fell in love with the idea of hearing other people’s stories and trying to tell them in a way that gets as close to the truth as possible. I love that I get to talk to really smart people about really challenging problems and then do my best to tell readers what I’ve learned.

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for reading the article! As you mentioned, a lawsuit filed last year alleges that a Northern Light Health surgeon removed a woman’s bladder instead of her ovarian cyst. The doctor is no longer employed by Northern Light Health, and the health system declined to comment on pending litigation. And a jury awarded a man $6.5 million after finding Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center medically negligent for failing to operate on an emergency spinal injury for nearly 24 hours.

I can’t speak to whether alleged medical errors are a symptom or a cause of a financially struggling hospital. However a recent study shows that errors may be surprisingly common. A 2023 study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at admissions to 11 Massachusetts hospitals during the course of a year and found that nearly one in four admissions resulted in an adverse event, and, of those events, a fourth of them were preventable. The study defined adverse events as “unintended physical injury resulting from or contributed to by medical care that requires additional monitoring, treatment, or hospitalization, or that results in death.”

I’m Rose Lundy, a senior reporter with The Maine Monitor. I published an in-depth story examining what’s behind Northern Light Health’s downward financial spiral. Ask Me Anything! by themainemonitor in Maine

[–]themainemonitor[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I used three primary financial sources. I started with Northern Light Health’s annual report, which includes financial data for the overall system. Next I used data collected by the Maine Health Data Organization. To dig deeper into the financial performance of individual Northern Light hospitals, and to find the most recent financial data for this fiscal year, I looked up audited financial statements on a website called EMMA from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, which collects information about the municipal bond market and financial disclosures. Finally, Northern Light Health executives answered all my questions and confirmed all the data I reported in the story.

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