Lonborg said the workforce reduction is targeted to save about $18 million over the next 12 months. She explained that, “not unlike any other healthcare system in the country,” Denver Health is facing economic pressures.
“Our patient volumes are down a bit and our patient mix has changed,” she said, adding that a new CMS short-stay observation policy is hurting Denver Health, which is Colorado's safety-net health system.
In a study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that the CMS observation status for patients who were too sick to be sent home but not sick enough to be admitted resulted in a $331 loss per patient at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.
Lonborg said the annual impact of “migration” from inpatient to observation status has been calculated at $2.2 million.
Little Rock, Ark.-based Baptist Health, meanwhile, announced that it would be eliminate 170 positions, or 2.5% of its workforce.
The system is “undertaking a number of initiatives … to address the challenges of health reform and severe federal budget cuts,” according to a statement issued by Mark Lowman, Baptist Health's vice president of strategic development.
“In a difficult and challenging environment of substantially less government reimbursement, burdensome government regulations, rapidly rising costs of supplies, increasing charity care and bad debt, and the need for technology and medical innovations,” Lowman wrote, “we believe these efforts will serve to make Baptist Health more effective.”
The cuts will be spread across the system's seven hospitals in Little Rock, Arkadelphia, Heber Springs and Stuttgart. Lowman said Baptist Health sees its plans as consistent with staff reductions at other hospital networks and that they will not affect the quality of care.
A response from Little Rock's congressman, though, signaled that turmoil in the healthcare job market may become more fodder for the political fight over the federal healthcare overhaul. U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) issued a statement, calling Baptist Health's layoffs “a grim reminder of how excessive and overly burdensome regulations are hurting our economy and stifling job growth.”
The House was expected to vote Wednesday on a bill Griffin introduced to codify the Obama administrations delay of the requirement that employers offer affordable health coverage, along with separate legislation that would delay the law's individual insurance mandate.
Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks
Follow Rachel Landen on Twitter: @MHrlanden
