Tarrant County’s safety net hospital system, JPS Health Network, is navigating its 2027 budget planning with several challenges, including a growing patient population and a decrease in Medicaid coverage. The hospital’s main campus is at capacity, with a 582-bed capacity and no empty beds available.

Challenges in Budget Planning

The hospital’s budget planning process begins with assessing the volume of care it must provide, then builds a budget to accommodate that volume. According to Chief Financial Officer Kim Hodgkinson, the hospital’s revenue mix is expected to change, with a decrease in Medicaid patients and an increase in self-pay patients. The hospital aims to reduce the length of inpatient stays and observation time to alleviate the strain on its capacity.

JPS also cares for Tarrant County jail inmates, with about four to five patients per day being medically cleared for discharge but waiting to return to jail due to lack of capacity or inability to care for their own basic needs. The hospital is looking to classify fewer stays as observation and more as inpatient admissions to increase revenue.

Revenue Mix Changes

The hospital’s largest payer group is Medicare patients, and it expects this to continue next year. The draft budget for fiscal year 2027 plans for 23.3% of patients to be on Medicare, a slight increase from this year. The percentage of self-pay patients is expected to increase, with 21% of patients expected to be self-pay in 2027.

The number of patients on Affordable Care Act commercial health insurance plans is expected to drop next year, to 6.9% from the 7.4% currently projected for this year. JPS had originally budgeted for 8.8% in 2026.

Original reporting: Fort Worth Report — read the source article.