Bitter Pill

With patients staying away due to the panic created around contracting Covid-19, top hospitals are losing crores from postponement of elective surgeries and check-ups

- POOJA SARKAR

Hospital bills running into lakhs for Covid-19 treatment have often made headlines over the last few months, leading to a public perception that health care companies are minting money out of a crisis. But the latest quarter results of a number of top hospitals indicate otherwise.

Most of the top listed health care companies have ended up in red for the April-June quarter: While Apollo Hospitals, the largest by market capitalisation, is yet to report its results, the others on top—Fortis Healthcare, Narayana Health and Aster DM Healthcare—reported losses. In some cases, revenues from operations and profits had started falling or were flat during the end of March quarter too.

Take Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL) and its listed subsidiary Fortis Malar Hospitals Ltd; both reported losses for the quarter. FHL’s consolidated revenue from operations stood at ₹606 crore during the June-ended quarter as compared to ₹1,138 crore during the corresponding period last year, a drop of 47 percent. It recorded losses of ₹188 crore against a profit of ₹78 crore for the same period last year, while its hospital occupancy during the quarter was at 37 percent as against 66 percent in FY20.

Fortis’s average revenue per occupied bed (ARPOB), a metric hospitals closely look at, stood at ₹1.51 crore during the quarter as against ₹1.58 crore during the same period last year, which means patients are paying less than before. Fortis Malar’s revenues dropped by 70 percent on a year-on-year basis and stood at ₹9.43 crore.