Mayo reports strong income and revenue growth in 2011

Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Clinic officials announced Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 that they will use a financial boost to move forward with several construction projects across the health system.
MPR File Photo/Tom Weber

For the second consecutive year, the Rochester-based Mayo Clinic saw increases in both net income and revenue.

Clinic officials announced Thursday they will use that financial boost to move forward with several construction projects across the health system.

In 2011, the Mayo Clinic hospital system brought in a profit of 18.4 percent, to just over $610 million.

Mayo's Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bolton said the clinic's revenue has grown at roughly double the pace of expenses over the past three years. In 2011, total revenue increased by nearly 7 percent, reaching $8.48 billion.

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"We had a very strong year financially in 2011," Bolton said. "We've strengthened our financial position allowing us to make the critical investments that we need to make in order to continue to be success in meeting the needs of our patients."

Those investments include $600 million in capital projects for 2012. That makes for a busy downtown Rochester with construction on several sites.

Mayo Clinic Chief Administrative Officer Shirley Weis said projects include an emergency room expansion at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, three new research centers: The Center for Science of Health Care Delivery, The Center for Individualized Medicine, and The Center for Regenerative Medicine, and proton beam cancer therapy centers in Rochester and Arizona.

"This program is really designed to make sure we have cutting-edge therapy for our patients," Weis said. "This isn't about making money. This is about being able to meet the needs of our patients."

Fueling the clinic's strong performance was revenue growth associated, in part, with an increase in the number of patients visiting Mayo. From 2010 to 2011, the number of patients grew by 32,000 to 1.1 million across all of Mayo's campuses.

Officials say there were more surgical cases, as well as patients with very complex and serious illnesses that require significant diagnostic and therapeutic programs. Mayo CEO John Noseworthy said that's kept the clinic very busy.

"We're seeing patients who are sicker than ever," Noseworthy said. "Patients requiring complex care and management continue to come to Mayo Clinic."

That translated into another positive highlight from 2011: jobs. Mayo added roughly 2,000 jobs across its campuses last year including 1,502 in Minnesota.