Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Melissa Jaffe with Merrill Lynch.
Melissa Jaffe - Merrill Lynch
Hi, good morning.
Joel F. Gemunder - President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning to you.
Melissa Jaffe - Merrill Lynch
So just given your comments about script profitability, brands versus generics, and gross profit of generics holding up relatively well over an extended period of time, I am just trying to reconcile that with the decline in gross profit. I mean they are still down about 10% for the last two years, I mean is most of that driven by the bed losses?
Joel F. Gemunder - President and Chief Executive Officer
Well that certainly would be a part of it, but it's also function of patient mix. For example, I should say assisted-living patients. While the patients in service generally tend to have a higher number of scripts that are prescribed, their penetration rate of these facilities is lower. Yes, we still have to deliver drugs to those facilities on a daily basis and our yield per stop is less. So those kinds of factors come into play. MACs, which the government allows insurance companies to place, are also a factor. In essence, we have several hundred insurance companies competing with us for the spread between the prices that are set by the government and are nibbled away by the insurance companies. And we on the other hand, have to use our scale and cost control to offset these issues. Though it's a push me pull you, kind of business that we are in. And so far, and then we've done a pretty good job of keeping our margins where they should be.
There is no doubt that the advent of Part D has taken some of the margin out of this business. But we work very-very hard to restore it in a number of ways, and I think as you look at these margin numbers, they start to improve from quarter-to-quarter. Isn't that right, Dave?
They are improving because we are reacting favorably to these MACs and are finding ways to offset the impact by the use of our scale, cost control, better purchasing, which I always thought was very good to begin with, but even better purchasing and more adroit managing of the buy side of our business.
Melissa Jaffe - Merrill Lynch
Okay. That's helpful. And then I was wondering if you could just provide a little color on some of your ancillary businesses, specialty and hospice. Can you give sort of rough range of size of those businesses relative to the institutional, the core institutional business?
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