There were several articles in today’s Wall Street Journal, and I did my monthly update on Desperate Hospitals, which has been a monthly post since August 2008. BD
Desperate Hospitals Update – April 2009
Employment in health care, the only major industry outside the federal government still adding jobs, is succumbing to the recession.
In the latest sign, the president of New York City Health & Hospitals Corp. wrote Friday to community organizations as well as employees and unions at its 11 hospitals and four nursing homes, saying the agency will lay off more workers even after slashing 400 jobs last month
"To the extent that health care might have been recession-proof, it is no longer," said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a teaching hospital for Harvard University. The hospital last month announced 140 job cuts, salary freezes, and reductions in vacation allowances and retirement-fund contributions to make up a $20 million budget shortfall.
Mr. Levy began to get worried in October, when Massachusetts cut Medicaid payments to his hospital by $7 million. In November, he noticed researchers weren't applying for grants as actively as usual, anticipating less government funding; that cost another $7 million in revenue for the hospital, which gets some of the grant money to cover overhead. Then in January, patient volume slowed. During the first three months of this year, hospital discharges -- a standard measure of patients treated -- dropped to 112 a day from a targeted 122, which translates into $20 million less in yearly revenue.
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