Developing Financial Benchmarks for Critical Access Hospitals

This study developed and applied benchmarks
for five indicators included in the
CAH Financial Indicators Report, an annual,
hospital-specific report distributed to
all critical access hospitals (CAHs). An online
survey of Chief Executive Officers and
Chief Financial Officers was used to establish
benchmarks. Indicator values for 2004,
2005, and 2006 were calculated for 421
CAHs and hospital performance was compared
to the benchmarks. Although many
hospitals performed better than benchmark
on one indicator in 1 year, very few performed
better than benchmark on all five
indicators in all 3 years. The probability of
performing better than benchmark differed
among peer groups.