MedPAC March Madness: Hospitals Maintain the Status Quo

The annual March report to Congress from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, better known as MedPAC, never fails to disappoint. This year’s 671-page tome again is a reality check on the special-interest rhetoric from various sectors of the healthcare industry.

Here are 12 things you probably didn’t know about hospitals if you listened only to the hospital lobby.

The total number of inpatient beds rose by 3,000 to 674,000 in 2024 from 671,000 in 2023.
The hospital occupancy rate rose slightly to 71% in 2024 from 70% in 2023.
Total hospital employment rose to 4.8 million in 2024 from 4.6 million in 2023.
The total number of hospitals slipped to 4,530 in 2024 from 4,550 in 2023.
The total number of inpatient stays by Medicare beneficiaries stayed the same at 6.9 million in both 2024 and 2023.
The average hospital length of stay for Medicare beneficiaries dipped to 5.2 days in 2024 from 5.3 days in 2023.
The total number of hospital outpatient visits by Medicare beneficiaries rose slightly to 82.2 million in 2024 from 81 million in 2023.
Hospitals’ risk-adjusted 30-day mortality rate for Medicare beneficiaries dropped to 7.4% in 2024 from 7.6% in 2023.
Hospitals’ risk-adjusted 30-day readmission rate for Medicare beneficiaries rose to 15.4% in 2024 from 15.1% in 2023.
The percentage of patients who rated their hospital a nine or 10 out of 10 was unchanged at 72% in both 2024 and 2023.
Hospitals’ all-payer operating profit margin rose to 6.4% in 2024 from 4.9% in 2023.
The all-payer operating profit margin for for-profit hospitals hit a six-year high in 2024 at 14.5%, up from 13.3% in 2023.

All in all, 2024 was a fairly uneventful year for the hospital sector, according MedPAC’s March report to Congress. There were no noticeable changes or dramatic jumps in any of those performance measures, other than profit margins rising. This is what maintaining the status quo looks like in numbers.

If maintaining the status quo was the hospital lobby’s primary goal, then 2024 was a rousing success. For consumers, though, it was more of the same. And the same just isn’t good enough.

The MedPAC report tells us why we need to build better healthcare.

About the Author

David Burda

David Burda began covering healthcare in 1983 and hasn’t stopped since. Dave writes this monthly column “Burda on Healthcare,” contributes weekly blog posts, manages our weekly newsletter 4sight Friday, and hosts our weekly Roundup podcast. Dave believes that healthcare is a business like any other business, and customers — patients — are king. If you do what’s right for patients, good business results will follow.

Dave’s personal experiences with the healthcare system both as a patient and family caregiver have shaped his point of view. It’s also been shaped by covering the industry for 40 years as a reporter and editor. He worked at Modern Healthcare for 25 years, the last 11 as editor.

Prior to Modern Healthcare, he did stints at the American Medical Record Association (now AHIMA) and the American Hospital Association. After Modern Healthcare, he wrote a monthly column for Twin Cities Business explaining healthcare trends to a business audience, and he developed and executed content marketing plans for leading healthcare corporations as the editorial director for healthcare strategies at MSP Communications.

When he’s not reading and writing about healthcare, Dave spends his time riding the trails of DuPage County, IL, on his bike, tending his vegetable garden and daydreaming about being a lobster fisherman in Maine. He lives in Wheaton, IL, with his lovely wife of 40 years and his three children, none of whom want to be journalists or lobster fishermen.

March 25, 2026

MedPAC March Madness: Hospitals Maintain the Status Quo

About the Author

David Burda

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