When looking at a balance sheet (for your students: revenue-expenses=income), ER traffic and hospital admissions do make up part of the revenue stream, but of course not all. Out-patient testing and auxiliary services are a large chunk of change, as are “other income” like investment and rental interest. Flip the coin, and expenses may be down because of a hiring freeze (with less humans doing a larger share of the work), a change in employee benefits, decreased use of utilities, etc.

Also, are the bean counters using the cash or accrual basis? Might make a difference; it’s amazing what a little bit of fancy-footwork can do to the books.

Tom Farrell