The financially healthiest hospitals in suburban Philadelphia are actually not-for-profit, while those operating for profit struggled the most last year, according to a new Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council report covered by the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Main Line Health was “easily the most profitable suburban health system,” the article stated, with its Paoli Hospital leading the way with a 19.06 percent total profit margin in fiscal year 2014. Main Line’s other hospitals, in Bryn Mawr and Lankenau, also posted double-digit margins.

Meanwhile, the for-profit Community Health Systems struggled locally, with the margin for its Brandywine Hospital in negative territory at a 6.97 percent loss, followed by Jennersville Regional Hospital with a loss of 4.12 percent.

Its Phoenixville Hospital was able to make money, though, posting a 4.05 percent profit.

Penn Medicine’s community-governed Chester County Hospital was close to breaking even with a 2.25 percent loss.

In comparison, net patient revenues in the CHS system are vastly smaller ($122 million, $43 million and $148 million, respectively) than those in Main Line Health ($284 million, $306 million and $395 million). Chester County Hospital saw $233 million in net patient revenues last year.

Statewide, average profit margins are shrinking for health care companies.

“Hospitals need healthy margins to invest in the technology, workforce development and new community-based models of care required to continue the transformation of health care,” Hospital & Healthsystems Association of Pennsylvania President and CEO Andy Carter said in the article.

“Too many of the region’s hospitals are struggling financially. The significant hospital cuts proposed for next year’s state budget will weaken hospital capacity. We need to support and strengthen hospitals, not undermine them.”

Read more about Paoli Hospital the latest financial checkup for local hospitals in the Philadelphia Business Journal here.