Cash-starved hospitals and doctor groups cut staff amid pandemic (WP)

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/starved-for-cash-hospitals-and-doctor-groups-cut-staff-amid-pandemic/2020/04/09/d3593f54-79a7-11ea-a130-df573469f094_story.html

Cash-starved hospitals and doctor groups cut staff amid pandemic
By Shane Harris, Justin Sondel and Gregory S. Schneider
April 9 at 3:03 PM

Hospitals across the country have deferred or canceled non-urgent surgeries to free up bed space and equipment for covid-19 patients. But that triage maneuver cut off a main source of income, causing huge losses that have forced some hospitals to let go of health-care workers as they struggle to treat infected patients.

Last week, Bon Secours Mercy Health, which runs 51 hospitals in seven states, announced it would furlough 700 workers. On Wednesday, Ballad Health, which operates 21 hospitals across Tennessee and southwest Virginia, delivered the same bad news to 1,300 employees and said executives would take pay cuts. Nurses at Children’s National Hospital in the District were informed this week that they must take off one week, using either vacation time or, if they have none, unpaid leave.

For hospitals already in bad financial shape before the outbreak, the loss of income has raised doubts about their ability to keep treating patients.

A report this week by the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Department blamed the cash crunch for ill-timed layoffs and furloughs.

“Hospitals reported laying off staff due to financial difficulties, which further exacerbated workforce shortages and the hospitals’ ability to care for covid-19 patients and the routine patient population,” the IG found.

“One administrator stated that it had been ‘an absolute financial nightmare for hospitals.’”

Michigan’s Beaumont is one of the more financially stable hospital systems in the country, Fox said. Under normal conditions, the company earns about $16 million each month in net operating income. But after postponing elective surgeries, Beaumont is losing about $100 million a month, he said.

Across Virginia, hospitals and health-care systems expect to lose a total of $600 million for the 30 days between late March and late April, said Julian Walker, spokesman for the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.