Thomas Jefferson University had a $34 million operating profit in fiscal 2025’s second quarter
Jefferson Health for the first time reported results combined with Lehigh Valley Health Network, which it acquired Aug. 1.
Thomas Jefferson University, which includes Lehigh Valley Health Network since Aug. 1, had a $34.2 million operating profit in the three months that ended Dec. 31. In the same period of 2023, Jefferson and Lehigh Valley had a combined $1.7 million operating loss.
The Philadelphia-based nonprofit health system reported six-month results to municipal bond investors Friday, but the year-over-year results in that report are not comparable because of the acquisition. The Inquirer isolated results for the second quarter of fiscal 2025 to get comparable year-over-year numbers.
Fiscal 2025 ends in June. Jefferson, which recently announced that it is laying off 171 back-office workers next month now has 32 hospitals stretching from South Jersey to near Scranton in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Here are details from the latest financial report:
Revenue: Jefferson had $4.02 billion in revenue, up 13% from $3.56 billion in the last three months of 2023.
A drag on Jefferson’s revenue was a 7% decline in the number of people enrolled in its Medicaid insurance plan, which it operates though its Philadelphia-based Health Partners Plans. Jefferson had 316,490 Medicaid members in Decemberin Southeastern Pennsylvania, down from 339,836 the year before, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
Like other states, Pennsylvania had to requalify people for Medicaid after the federal government ended the COVID-19 public health emergency in May 2023. Statewide, the number of people covered by Medicaid fell to 2.37 million from 3.02 million, or by 21%.
Operating income: It’s a good sign for Jefferson that it was profitable on an operating basis in the second quarter, but it’s operating margin was just shy of 1%. That’s still very low. The improvement at Jefferson from a small loss in late 2023 was in line with national data for large health systems, according to Kaufman Hall, a Chicago health-care consulting firm.
Jefferson includes investment income in operating results because it follows rules for educational institutions. Without it, the organization would have remained in the red. Other local health systems follow different reporting rules that do not include investment income in operating results.