Study: Nonprofit Hospitals Generate the Most Profit

Seven of the 10 most profitable U.S. hospitals each cleared more than $160 million in 2013 from patient-care services despite their having nonprofit status, according to a new report.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Washington and Lee University drew on 2013 data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to analyze 3,000 acute-care hospitals, of which 59 percent were nonprofit, 25 percent were for-profit and 16 percent were public.

The study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs, led lead researcher Gerard Anderson of Johns Hopkins to believe that the most profitable hospitals in the country establish monopolies in their communities, allowing them to mark up prices charged to private insurers.