What’s next for AGH?

Atlantic General Hospital, 31 years into its improbable existence, is about to do … something. Or not. The statement released Tuesday by the AGH Board of Trustees says as much.

Between quotes and assurances that all is well and will get even better, the statement provides no real information other than the hospital leadership is thinking about, but is not committed to, doing something.

That something could be attempting to establish a partnership, joint venture or some other kind of operating agreement with another healthcare system. Or board members could do what their predecessors have done from the beginning: figure out how to maintain the hospital’s financial equilibrium and keep on going as an independent entity.

What they cannot do, however, is ignore the problem that brought the hospital to this critical juncture: AGH’s operating expenses are increasing more rapidly than its operating income, according to Fiscal Year 2023 financial data collected by the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.

Although the financial reports of other Maryland hospitals in this data set show that 2023 was not a good year for many of them, AGH’s particular problem is that it can’t bill or expand its way out of its predicament.

Its rates for in-hospital and specific other services are regulated by the cost review commission as well as the payment restrictions of Medicare. AGH also operates in a healthcare market silo of sorts, surrounded by Tidal Health and its satellite facilities to the west, and to a lesser extent, Beebe Hospital in Sussex County, Delaware.

This leaves the board of trustees to figure out how, in these circumstances, it can ensure that the hospital keeps pace with rising costs and is able to offer the competitive salaries that good medical professionals and staff require.

Given that the improbability that AGH would even open its doors 31 years ago was overcome by supporters’ hard-headedness and creative thinking, there’s no doubt that the board will apply these same virtues as it figures out what to do next. Whatever that might be.