COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – Data teams with UC Health hospitals report a 92% increase in migrant visits, outpatient visits and hospital admissions to their hospital system statewide during the same three-month period last year, from November to January. Colorado Springs-based UC health hospitals saw a 77% increase locally in the same period.
A release details they reached these numbers by only documenting people who did not have a social security number, volunteered that they were a migrant or volunteered that they were from another country. The numbers only include uninsured patients, meaning that many of these patients can’t pay for the care they receive.
“The Colorado Hospital Association defines a hospital as having a healthy or sustainable margin if it has a 4% operating margin,” Dan Weaver, a spokesperson from UC Health said today. “Our hospitals and UC Health overall is below that 4% margin right now.”
To boot, the hospital reported a 5,800 increase in new migrant patients system-wide. Colorado Springs UC Health Hospitals account for 1,200 of those new patients.