More than 2,300 employees at Baptist Health have been laid off temporarily or had their hours reduced because of a financial crunch brought on by the covid-19 crisis, Troy Wells, its president and chief executive officer, said Friday.
Baptist Health, the largest hospital system in the state, first announced furlough plans on March 31 in an email to employees but didn't have specific numbers at the time because the plan was still being developed.
Wells, in a statement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said 2,313 employees are now "on some sort of temporary furlough, either fulltime, 50% or 25%." Wells said Baptist Health has seen about a 30% loss in revenue since the crisis began.
"This is approximately 21% of our workforce," Wells said. "Of these, approximately 200 are bedside caregivers who in many cases were already off due to low census. A number of other cost-saving measures are in place in addition to the furloughs to minimize the pressure during this crisis."
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Baptist has about 11,000 employees at its 11 hospitals and numerous clinics in Arkansas. The 2,313 jobs affected are across the system's operations.
On March 18, the White House's coronavirus task force and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that all elective surgeries, non-essential medical, surgical and dental procedures be delayed. The guidelines effectively put an end to testing and surgeries and procedures not considered urgent or emergencies.
"Protecting the health of our employees and their jobs are of the utmost priority," Wells said. "...[T]he pandemic is putting healthcare organizations like ours in a challenging position to stay financially viable and continue to respond to this crisis."
All workers affected will continue receiving their core benefits and will get help, if needed, in filing for unemployment compensation, Wells said.
No hospitals in Arkansas have closed, Bo Ryall, president and chief executive officer of the Arkansas Hospital Association, said Friday.
"With no elective surgeries and procedures going on and people staying at home, every hospital is feeling a strain on finances with cuts in revenue of 50% to 75%," he said. "They're all struggling, from the smallest to the largest."
Ryall noted that some $30 billion in federal aid for hospitals was released Friday morning. "That's going to help, but it doesn't replace the all revenue that has already been lost," Ryall said. He said federal and state governments have accelerated payments to hospitals and that insurance companies need to as well.
Baptist Health is far from alone.
On Thursday, CHI St. Vincent Infirmary notified employees that it "will implement short-term expense reduction initiatives" that would include furloughs in "select departments," a reduction in clinics' operating hours and a hiring freeze, according to a statement released Friday.
The hospital system didn't specify how many workers will be affected. CHI St. Vincent has hospitals in Little Rock and Hot Springs and several clinics across the state.
Earlier this month, North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison said it will furlough about 35 workers, all in support departments. The center has about 800 employees. Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home said 105 employees will be furloughed because of a "significant decrease in volume throughout the organization, whether it is in emergency services, physician offices or inpatient stays." Baxter Regional has about 1,700 employees. White River Medical Center in Batesville and Magnolia Regional Medical Center, in Columbia County, also have had unspecified number of furloughs.
Becker's Healthcare, a Chicago-based health care media and communications company, has kept a running tally of layoffs at hospitals since late March. Based primarily on media accounts, the tally has noted most of the Arkansas reductions as among those at some 80 hospitals nationwide.
About half of the 80 entries on the Becker's website didn't give specific numbers on layoffs. Of 44 that did, however, the number of job losses and furloughs amounted to about 21,300.
Arkansas is still awaiting approval from the federal government of a package devised by the administration of Gov. Asa Hutchinson that would use $116 million in state and federal Medicaid funds to help the state's health care industry. The state's portion of the plan would cost $25 million.
The plan includes $1,000 a month to non-physician direct care workers, primarily nurses, and $2,000 more a month to those in facilities treating patients with the virus. Other payments would be made to certain hospitals, independent physicians, rural health clinics and behavioral health agencies for modifications such as drive-thru test sites and isolation areas.
Metro on 04/11/2020