Cartoon – Warding off Frivolous Lawsuits
Cartoon – Bringing Gravitas to Frivolous Lawsuits
Cartoon – Sign of the Times
Cartoon – In the Loop
Cartoon – What they want?
Cartoon – Power of the Committee
2020, in 12 photographs
| Dean Baquet, The Times’s executive editor, believes that 2020 will go down as a signature year in history, alongside years like 1968, 1945 and 1865. “It will long be remembered and studied as a time when more than 1.5 million people globally died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself faced extraordinary tests,” he writes. |
| Those words come from Dean’s introduction to The Times’s annual Year in Pictures feature. Here, my colleagues on The Morning and I have chosen a dozen of those pictures that we think best summarize 2020. But we obviously have room here for only a fraction of the year’s photographs — so I encourage you to check out the full selection. |
| As you do, ask yourself which pictures you would have selected if you had to pick only 12 to sum up 2020. |
Again, you can find the full Year in Pictures here.
Hospital workforce tracker: layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts
Many hospitals are temporarily or permanently reducing the size of their workforce as they grapple with depleted revenues and the thorny question of when they can return to normal operating capacity. Here’s a tracker to follow the latest updates.
Hospitals across the country, financially battered as they face the dual challenges of sick COVID-19 patients and a precipitous decline in patient volume, are struggling to balance quickly shifting staffing needs. While some face and others brace for intense demand, many have announced furloughs of specialists and others that work in elective surgeries that have been drastically scaled back.
Thousands of healthcare workers at hospitals big and small have been asked not to return to work, and it’s still unclear how soon non-essential services will return. While some governors announce plans to reopen businesses, others have extended stay-at-home orders.
Most recent data from the U.S Bureau of Labor doesn’t cover the second half of March or early April, but during the first half of March, the healthcare industry shed 43,000 jobs — reversing a decade of growth in the sector. According to BLS data, the industry added 49,000 jobs in March 2019.
“Even our emergency room has seen a significant drop in patients coming in,” Sue Philips, an ICU nurse at Palomar Pomerado Health in Northern San Diego, told Healthcare Dive.
Phillips is a spokesperson with National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses union. Palomar Health, which runs three medical centers in northern San Diego County, recently instituted 21-day temporary layoffs of 221 employees.
On April 28, Palomar announced that most of those layoffs were becoming permanent. The system laid off 5% of its workforce, eliminating 317 positions. Fifty of those employees were clinical RNs, mostly in part-time positions, and the rest spread across the organization ranging from clerical staff to technicians.
Due to a 50% decrease in patient volumes, Palomar lost $10 million in revenue in March alone, according to a statement. In April the system said it stands to lose $20 million or more.
“I’m an ICU nurse, so my job is pretty much protected,” Phillips said. “But you didn’t think you were expendable until you became expendable, and that’s a hard pill for nurses and caregivers to swallow.”
Congress has attempted to financially support struggling hospitals through ongoing coronavirus relief legislation, approving some $175 billion thus far. But without knowing what will come next, hospitals are attempting to remain nimble while reining in one of their most costly expenses — paying employees.
The following information is based on publicly reported data, along with interviews with hospital representatives and union members.
It’s not an exhaustive list, but features nonprofit and for-profit hospital systems that reported revenue above $10 billion in 2019. It also takes a look at smaller, more regionally based systems that have announced similar cutbacks.
Click on link above to use the dropdown to find a company.
As healthcare job growth slows, some look to restructure long-term operations
Healthcare job losses reached staggering levels amid stay-at-home orders and the widespread cancellation of elective procedures when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit this spring. Dentists and ambulatory services were particularly hard hit.
While the industry has since recovered many of the 1.3 million jobs lost this April, it’s still 527,000 short from February levels, and monthly gains have slowed since, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At the same time, some of the major hospitals that issued furloughs or layoffs early in the pandemic are now further reducing the size of their workforce.
The stagnation will likely continue, as companies “don’t hire as many people, then lay some people off to also try and save money, because worse times may be ahead,” said Erica Groshen, former BLS commissioner and senior labor economics adviser at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
One example is Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White, which laid off 3% of its workforce, or 1,200 employees in May. It’s now laying off a third of its corporate finance staff, though some impacted employees are being offered positions with a third-party vendor, the system said in a Monday statement.
Providence Health & Services laid off 183 employees in mostly administrative roles as a result of transitioning work to a third-party vendor, while five employees were laid off “as a result of business need,” according to a WARN notice letter the system sent to an Oregon state agency Nov. 16. It previously issued an unknown number of furloughs across its 51-hospital system.
And Utah-based Intermountain Health said it would cut 250 business-related jobs by offering 750 employees voluntary separation packages on Oct. 13.
The moves come even while hospitals are stretched to the brink from the highest surge of coronavirus cases the country has yet seen. In the past few weeks, many have halted elective procedures and paid steep rates for temporary nursing staff, further straining finances.
And other healthcare establishments, such as some doctor’s offices and medical labs, are still struggling to get reluctant patients back in.
A recent Labor Department survey covering the onset of the pandemic through September found among all healthcare businesses, 64% experienced a decrease in demand while only 13% experienced an increase in demand.
In November, healthcare businesses overall added 46,000 jobs in — fewer than the 58,000 jobs added in October; 53,000 in September; and 75,000 in August, according to BLS data.
Hospitals added about 4,000 jobs in November and are about 100,000 jobs short from February.
FTC loses bid to stop Philadelphia hospital merger
The challenge to Jefferson Health’s bid for Albert Einstein was the first action to block a provider deal in years for the FTC. Now, it’s hit a hurdle in the courts, though the agency could still appeal after this dismissal.
“The Court’s ruling is disappointing, and we our considering our options,” an FTC spokesperson said.
FTC has argued that both Jefferson and Einstein compete in acute care and rehab services and vie for inclusion in insurers’ networks.
Pappert’s ruling Monday, and the examples he used, essentially argued that given the number of competitors in the region, insurers could walk away from potential price increases the merged entity may impose by opting to redirect their members to other facilities.
Because there are so many systems, “no insurer can credibly assert that there would be ‘no network’ without a combined Jefferson and Einstein — something the insurers could say when Hershey and Pinnacle, the two largest Harrisburg area hospitals … attempted to merge,” Pappert wrote. He frequently cited the Hershey-Pinnacle case, which also was denied a preliminary injunction in district court but went on to win one in a federal appeals court.
Pappert also noted that no employers testified that they would have difficulty marketing a health plan to employees that excluded Jefferson and Einstein. In fact, the one employer that did weigh in, a school district, said it would be fine without the two.
The court also takes issue with whether the FTC properly defined the relevant markets in the lawsuit, an important hurdle in any case seeking to block a merger.
Pappert, a President Barack Obama appointee, was skeptical of the region’s largest insurer’s opposition to the merger during testimony. Particularly when the second-largest insurer had no concerns with the merger and does not believe it will pay higher rates.
Pappert said Independence Blue Cross, the largest carrier, has a “clear motive, other than antitrust concerns, to oppose this merger.” Together, Jefferson and Einstein own a portion of Health Partners Plans, a Medicaid and Medicare insurance product. HPP operates the second-largest Medicaid plan in Philadelphia, behind IBC’s.
A merger of Jefferson and Einstein would give the combined entity a 50% stake in HPP, though Jefferson is seeking to buyout the other partner, court dockets claim.
IBC’s CEO, said of the potential insurer competition: “It remains to be seen how we are going to be able to collaborate with anyone who is in direct competition with us as an insurer.”
HENRY KOTULA 