Hospitals still want to cash in despite the rise of outpatient clinics

Hospital beds are not filling up like they used to, but that doesn't mean hospitals want their beds to be empty.

What they're saying: Even though more patients are being treated in outpatient clinics rather than hospitals, "we'll still be able to keep our beds pretty full," Don Scanlon, chief financial officer at Mount Sinai Health System, said this week at an investor lunch held at Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City.

Details: Mount Sinai, a not-for-profit hospital system based in Manhattan with $5 billion in annual revenue, is preparing to sell $475 million in bonds, and was making its pitch to bondholders about why buying that debt would be a good deal.

Between the lines: Mount Sinai's discharges have trended down, but the hospital doesn't want to lose the bigger dollars tied to inpatient stays. And the system wants to reassure municipal investors they will see returns.

• As a result, Mount Sinai has invested more money in outpatient centers in other parts of New York that serve as "feeders" for its main city hospitals, Scanlon said.

The bottom line: Mount Sinai, Trinity Health, Banner Health and a host of other hospital systems have openly touted plans to boost or retain admissions even though they say they want to keep people out of the hospital. This is a fundamental disconnect between "value-based care" and the system's financial incentives.

Go deeper:

• How banks and law firms make millions from hospital debt
• Health care prices drive up inflation
• Trump administration punts hospital price transparency rule