Spokane7
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September 17, 2010 in City
Hospital to announce layoffs next week
Executive says Sacred Heart $7 million behind plan
Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center will announce layoffs next week as the hospital copes with a slumping economy.
Fewer people are having elective surgeries – a lucrative business for health care providers – and the numbers of patients without insurance or unable to pay their medical bills has risen while the overall number of patients has dropped.
Elaine Couture, chief executive of Sacred Heart and Holy Family Hospital, said the hospital has to trim costs and cut some services and programs this fall.
Couture declined to say how many employees of Spokane’s largest private employer would be laid off. She said the hospital has left many job openings dark and will attempt to reconfigure employee schedules and duties to minimize job losses. Providence executives will scrutinize spending and costs at Holy Family this autumn.
Sacred Heart has asked each department to identify 5 percent in savings as part of the planning.
Although the hospital has posted disappointing financial results, Sacred Heart is not losing money.
Couture said the hospital was $7 million behind budget plan at the end of August. The budget called for a 3.6 percent profit margin for 2010. Instead the hospital is on pace for a 2.8 percent margin.
The Washington State Nurses Association called the cuts worrisome.
“Inadequate nurse staffing has been an ongoing concern and nurses are already often working without meal and rest breaks,” said Anne Tan Piazza, a WSNA spokeswoman. Nurses have contract language regarding layoffs.
Couture said the hospital must cut costs at a time when people continue to lose jobs, drop health insurance and turn to hospitals for free care.
Sacred Heart had planned to spend about 4.92 percent of its budget this year on charity care – a term used to describe the expected write-offs of caring for the poor.
Instead, the cost of providing such care is consuming 6.78 percent of its budget, or $6.9 million more than anticipated.
Sacred Heart, Couture said, will not budge from its mission statement that requires care for the region’s poor and vulnerable.
“I just want to make certain (people) know that we are focused on the highest level of care in Spokane,” she said. “We are here to help everybody.”
Parishes giving $1.5 million toward settling sex cases 
johnclarke on September 17 at 7:27 a.m.
I know a nurse. She works two twelve hour shifts per week, and makes more money than me. Maybe having a little competition in town (a hospital that is run like a business) will level set the health care in Spokane.
IHike4Fun on September 17 at 8:37 a.m.
A big drag on hospitals is Medicare reimbursements.
I worked in hospitals for close to 25 years and have been pretty involved in the reimbursement side of health care.
The hospital I worked at in Seattle wanted to build an adult outpatient psyche wing since there was a community need for one. The research showed a large majority of patients would be on Medicare. At the time Medicare was reimbursing 80% for these services. So they went ahead with the construction. By the time the wing was finished Medicare was only reimbursing 3%. They opened the wing as a outpatient step down unit.
Having worked in hospitals since the early 70’s I have observed two main factors that have contributed to the cost of health care more than any others.
1. Medicare reimbursement
2. Run away lawsuits.
If it costs you $5.00 to make a widgit and Medicare pays you $1.00 for it. Someone else will have to pay $9.00 for you to break even. If you have a $4.00 overhead per widgit for legal fees then that price for non-Medicare buyers goes up to $13.00 for you to break even.
And in my view (having looked at it from the inside for decades) that’s the problem in a nutshell. Hospitals run on a pretty dang slim margin because of these 2 factors alone. Since Medicare reform and tort reform will never occur the problem will persist.
beakaye on September 17 at 11:03 a.m.
This is some interesting reading, particularly some of the posts at the bottom of the article……..
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2009/04/dr-andrew-agwunobi-s.html
monkeyman on September 17 at 11:41 a.m.
@ johnclarke on September 17 at 7:27 a.m.
“I know a nurse. She works two twelve hour shifts per week, and makes more money than me.”
Are you a nurse yourself, with similar qualifications to the person you mention? You probably are not a firefighter, or a police officer in any case ;)