Mary Mayhew, the president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, talks about federal policy decisions that are impacting hospitals, including cuts in Medicaid and the lapse of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. She also discusses the growing demands on hospitals with an aging population that will need more services.

Changes: Mary Mayhew, CEO of the Florida Hospital Association

Data Book

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Data Book

## Participants

- **Ron Southwick** (Chief Healthcare Executive)
- **Mary Mayhew** (Florida Hospital Association)

## Transcript

Thanks for joining us. Welcome to another episode of Changes, a program from Chief Healthcare Executive. As the name suggests, the program looks at the rapid changes taking place in the healthcare industry. I'm Ron Southwick, Lead Editor of Chief Healthcare Executive. We're talking today with Mary Mayhew, the President and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association. Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks, Ron. Thanks for having me. Delighted to engage in this conversation. Well, I'm sure it's a topic of conversation you're having with a lot of hospital leaders in Florida.

Things are always changing in healthcare, but has the pace of change been even faster over the past year or so? It feels like it's operating at warped speed. You know, I've been doing this for a long time. A lot of these issues are cyclical when we think about financial stressors, payer mix, workforce, physician recruitment.

But there's something different now, Ron, in terms of the demand on healthcare and maybe Florida to a certain extent, because of the population growth and the rapidly aging baby boomer generation.

We're at a different pivot point, if you will, that frankly demands greater change in order to respond to the ever persistent challenges in healthcare, but more importantly, to anticipate and to respond to this skyrocketing demand. Let's talk about that aging population, because that's something that's on the mind of a lot more hospital leaders have been talking to of late.

I mean, you've got the last of the baby boomers sitting retirement age by the end of the decade, and Florida is a magnet as it is for people that want to go to the Sunshine State to retire. So is this something that hospitals are really having to think about in terms of caring for a population that is aging and is going to need more healthcare services likely in the coming years? Absolutely, front and center. Just generally, when you think about hospitals and the patients that we're caring for, it obviously skews to an older population.

But when we look at our numbers in Florida, so today we have over 4.5 million individuals over the age of 65. By 2030, that number will exceed 6 million. We have hospitals today that are already operating at 95% occupancy, 100% occupancy. That's not what you want. That's not an ideal occupancy rate.

It does not allow for the unexpected, the flexibility that you need. Even more importantly, or as another significant factor is, not just how the hospital and health system responds, Ron, but the full continuum. And that, I think, is an area that I'm extremely concerned about.

Do we have the capacity in skilled nursing facility beds, in rehabilitation beds, in home-based care and home health? All of those and assisted living have to be part of the equation. Otherw...

Changes: Mary Mayhew, CEO of the Florida Hospital Association

Transcript

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Changes: Mary Mayhew, CEO of the Florida Hospital Association

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.