What happens when hospitals start serving sicker patients?

Revenue, and profit increase:

...during its better-than-expected second quarter, HCA posted solid same-facility admissions growth and piggybacked on that with sizable increases in revenue per patient. Same-facility revenue per equivalent admission for Q3 is expected to be up 3.4 percent year over year. The company said its treatment of patients with more acute conditions accounted for two percentage points of that rise.