A live monitor of U.S. hospital financial health — with a free public-interest surface that predicts rural closures 12–18 months out and maps the patient-routing consequences.
What it is
Hospital Financial Pulse is a live monitor of hospital and health-system financial health derived from CMS Medicare cost reports, MSRB municipal bond disclosures for non-profit systems, IRS 990 filings, and publicly available audited financial statements. The product surfaces signals that precede public news: operating margin trajectory, days-cash-on-hand decay, bond covenant proximity, layoff and service-line-closure announcements, and executive turnover.
The product has two surfaces. The paid surface serves hospital CFOs benchmarking against peers, healthcare PE associates identifying acquisition targets entering distress, lender diligence teams monitoring covered borrowers, and healthcare journalists sourcing the next closure story before it lands in the local press.
The free surface — Rural Closure Watch — is a public-interest layer over the same pipeline, focused on rural and critical-access hospitals. When a rural hospital closes, ambulance transport times spike and cardiac and stroke mortality rises measurably (the literature is consistent and the effect is large). Rural Closure Watch predicts closures 12–18 months out from the financial signals, maps the catchment population, identifies the patients whose conditions are transport-time-sensitive, and gives state health departments and EMS systems lead time to plan. The Sheps Center tracks closures retrospectively. Branmoor predicts them prospectively, with the patient-routing layer.
Primary data sources
- CMS Medicare Hospital Cost Reports — Operating margin, cost structure, bed count, payer mix
- MSRB EMMA — Municipal bond disclosures, covenant status, material events for non-profit systems
- IRS Form 990 — Non-profit financial filings, executive compensation, related-party transactions
- Audited financial statements (where public) — GAAP financials, auditor opinions, going-concern qualifications
- U.S. Census ZCTA + AHRQ small-area health data — Catchment population and transport-time-sensitive condition prevalence (for Rural Closure Watch)
Buyers
- Hospital and health-system CFOs
- Healthcare private equity
- Lender diligence and municipal credit teams
- Healthcare journalists
- State health departments and EMS planners (free surface)
- Rural-health policy researchers and journalists (free surface)
Methodology
Closure prediction is a calibrated model trained on historical closures. Catchment population and routing impact are computed from census, AHRQ, and EMS data where available. Methodology is disclosed; predictions carry confidence intervals.
Inquire about access
Hospital Financial Pulse + Rural Closure Watch is sold under named institutional license. Pricing is scoped per engagement. Reach out with the institutional context (organization, role, intended use) and we'll route a relevant scope of work.