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Hoppy Kercheval is reporting that CAMC has announced they will be eliminating 300 full time equivalent positions. "Hospital cites tough economy and our health care delivery system".
Apparently, 56 positions have already been eliminated since January when they started a hiring freeze, but by the end of 2017 they will employ 300 less people and a couple programs will be shutting down over the next year.
Also in the story: "After the first five months of 2017, CAMC operations were on course to lose more than $40 million in 2017"
Hoppy Kercheval is reporting that CAMC has announced they will be eliminating 300 full time equivalent positions. "Hospital cites tough economy and our health care delivery system".
Apparently, 56 positions have already been eliminated since January when they started a hiring freeze, but by the end of 2017 they will employ 300 less people and a couple programs will be shutting down over the next year.
Also in the story: "After the first five months of 2017, CAMC operations were on course to lose more than $40 million in 2017"
Wow. I wonder where they will get the money to fix that situation? $40 million is a lot of money to be in the red. What a shame for the folks losing their jobs, as well as the other people in Kanawha that will be impacted too.
Apparently they have eliminated 290 jobs, and are still losing $30 million this year. They don't anticipate laying off any more people. One wonders how long they can keep losing money like that and still operate?
Apparently they have eliminated 290 jobs, and are still losing $30 million this year. They don't anticipate laying off any more people. One wonders how long they can keep losing money like that and still operate?
They say they are in a hiring freeze and are still bleeding money. Her is what they do over there - first hand experience:
They hire a temp at ~$12.00 per hour and the surcharge and admin fee for that temp is roughly $8.00 per hour. So, instead of hiring a CAMC employee they stick a temp in there and keep them for months on end or even years! Over time is allowed with few exceptions so that $20.00 per hour rate goes to $30.00. CAMC has probably as many as 700 hundred temps in their system. Let us assume 400 for conservative estimates. Lets also assume half of them get 5 hours of over time. So we have the non-overtime half being paid $96,000 per week and the other half is being paid $114,000 per week. That is a total payout each week of $200,000 and over the course of a year is $10.4 million.
Remember that CAMC has 7,000 current employees. I think they run about 10% temp which is the average for hospitals and that suggest that at any given time there are 700 temps scattered across the General, Memorial, Woman's and Children's, Putnam County and the Urgent Care locations. If we assume that they are paying for 700 temps per week instead of the 400, that means that annually, CAMC is paying out $5,942,858 for workers not actually listed on their books. While that is only a portion of the shortfall, it is not hard to see why the organization is in the red.
Those looking in at CAMC assume it is a centralized organization but if you have been in the military you know how these organizations work. Each department gets a budget annually and if they ever do not use all of their budget one year, they get a reduction in the next, so they come up with ways to use all of the forecasted need. Often that is in the form of hiring temps that don't do that much for that they are paid and the work they do should be done by an existing employee but seldom is.
Then there is the political angle, if CAMC runs red enough or for long enough, the state will toss them some bones to offset the books. But since there was never any real problem but intentional mismanagement the cycle is rinse and repeat and the people are the patients and their providers, which in the end is either the taxpayer or the patient.
They say they are in a hiring freeze and are still bleeding money. Her is what they do over there - first hand experience:
They hire a temp at ~$12.00 per hour and the surcharge and admin fee for that temp is roughly $8.00 per hour. So, instead of hiring a CAMC employee they stick a temp in there and keep them for months on end or even years! Over time is allowed with few exceptions so that $20.00 per hour rate goes to $30.00. CAMC has probably as many as 700 hundred temps in their system. Let us assume 400 for conservative estimates. Lets also assume half of them get 5 hours of over time. So we have the non-overtime half being paid $96,000 per week and the other half is being paid $114,000 per week. That is a total payout each week of $200,000 and over the course of a year is $10.4 million.
Remember that CAMC has 7,000 current employees. I think they run about 10% temp which is the average for hospitals and that suggest that at any given time there are 700 temps scattered across the General, Memorial, Woman's and Children's, Putnam County and the Urgent Care locations. If we assume that they are paying for 700 temps per week instead of the 400, that means that annually, CAMC is paying out $5,942,858 for workers not actually listed on their books. While that is only a portion of the shortfall, it is not hard to see why the organization is in the red.
Those looking in at CAMC assume it is a centralized organization but if you have been in the military you know how these organizations work. Each department gets a budget annually and if they ever do not use all of their budget one year, they get a reduction in the next, so they come up with ways to use all of the forecasted need. Often that is in the form of hiring temps that don't do that much for that they are paid and the work they do should be done by an existing employee but seldom is.
Then there is the political angle, if CAMC runs red enough or for long enough, the state will toss them some bones to offset the books. But since there was never any real problem but intentional mismanagement the cycle is rinse and repeat and the people are the patients and their providers, which in the end is either the taxpayer or the patient.
I agree they are in the right spot for a state money bailout when other hospitals wouldn't get one. It is alarming to think there are untrained temps performing healthcare work. So you feel that if the let the temps go, and allow the full time employees to do all the work, that will right the ship? Obviously they will have to do something.
The thing is, I'm imagining that the temps don't get benefits, while the regular employees do. Wouldn't that factor into their equation?
I agree they are in the right spot for a state money bailout when other hospitals wouldn't get one. It is alarming to think there are untrained temps performing healthcare work. So you feel that if the let the temps go, and allow the full time employees to do all the work, that will right the ship? Obviously they will have to do something.
The thing is, I'm imagining that the temps don't get benefits, while the regular employees do. Wouldn't that factor into their equation?
Indeed it does, but that was the pain of the ACA aka Obama Care. many businesses were bloated with temps because they could not afford the compensation package to direct hire. There are many issues with CAMC and I could not even begin to understand some of them but I do understand the HR aspect of it and I am directly familiar with their problem. Temps are a nice solution but one thing temps do not have is any loyalty to the contractor. Obviously that is not universal but contractors treat temps like machinery and temps do only enough to get their check and look for direct hire employment, which has been rare. So, CAMC pays a lot for generally substandard workers and treats those workers as disposable. This creates and atmosphere of inefficiency that permeates the entire organization and that bleeds into all of the operations and directly affects the bottom line. But, CAMC does not care, the state will not let anything happen to it. CAMC can say if only they could add more beds or this new facility they would improve their cash flow - except it wont. It is all a game and all parties involved know it except the patient that gets soaked.
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