At NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Its Ex-C.E.O. Finds Lucrative Work - NYTimes.com

 

When Dr. Herbert Pardes retired as president and chief executive of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in 2011, the institution honored him at its annual “Cabaret” fund-raiser. More than 1,000 guests dined on wild mushroom soup catered by the restaurateur Danny Meyer and listened to Kelli O’Hara, a star of “South Pacific,” serenade them with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim and Berlin.

But there were more thanks to come.

The next year, Dr. Pardes earned $5.6 million, which included $1 million in base salary, a $1.8 million bonus for his final year as chief executive and more than $2 million in deferred compensation, according to hospital tax records. That exceeded the amount earned by Dr. Pardes’s successor, Dr. Steven Corwin, who made $3.6 million that year.

Three years after retirement, Dr. Pardes is still employed by the hospital as the executive vice chairman of its board of trustees, a position that compensation experts say is rare in the nonprofit world, though much more common in for-profit companies

At NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Its Ex-C.E.O. Finds Lucrative Work - NYTimes.com

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Hospitals wounded by politics - Opinion - The Times-Tribune

 

Scranton’s three hospitals are among more than one-third of hospitals statewide that lost money in 2013. More than half of the state’s hospitals had profit margins lower than 4 percent for the year, the threshold for sustainability according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

It’s a trend that likely will continue statewide through 2014 and beyond unless the Corbett administration abandons its politically inspired resistance to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid.

The losses have multiple causes, but one key driver is the rising cost of uncompensated care — treatment for patients who have no private or public insurance and cannot pay.

According to the council, known as PHC4, Pennsylvania hospitals provided more than $1 billion in uncompensated care in 2013, a 5 percent increase over 2012.

Gov. Tom Corbett foolishly has rejected a portion of the federal health care law which, in other states that have accepted it, has begun to diminish levels of uncompensated care and provide hospitals with much-needed revenue.

Under the ACA, the federal government pays 100 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion to cover uninsured low-income workers in the first two years and covers 90 percent of the cost thereafter.

It’s an extraordinary deal for states. In Pennsylvania, it would have pumped about $17 billion into the health care economy through 2019, including about a $1.6 billion direct reduction in the amount of uncompensated care. That reduction likely would be higher because many people now receiving treatment at hospitals would have insurance enabling them to see other providers first.

Hospitals wounded by politics - Opinion - The Times-Tribune

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Medicine’s Top Earners Are Not the M.D.s - NYTimes.com

THOUGH the recent release of Medicare’s physician payments cast a spotlight on the millions of dollars paid to some specialists, there is a startling secret behind America’s health care hierarchy: Physicians, the most highly trained members in the industry’s work force, are on average right in the middle of the compensation pack.
That is because the biggest bucks are currently earned not through the delivery of care, but from overseeing the business of medicine.
The base pay of insurance executives, hospital executives and even hospital administrators often far outstrips doctors’ salaries, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times by Compdata Surveys: $584,000 on average for an insurance chief executive officer, $386,000 for a hospital C.E.O. and $237,000 for a hospital administrator, compared with $306,000 for a surgeon and $185,000 for a general doctor.


And those numbers almost certainly understate the payment gap, since top executives frequently earn the bulk of their income in nonsalary compensation. In a deal that is not unusual in the industry, Mark T. Bertolini, the chief executive of Aetna, earned a salary of about $977,000 in 2012 but a total compensation package of over $36 million, the bulk of it from stocks vested and options he exercised that year. Likewise, Ronald J. Del Mauro, a former president of Barnabas Health, a midsize health system in New Jersey, earned a salary of just $28,000 in 2012, the year he retired, but total compensation of $21.7 million.
The proliferation of high earners in the medical business and administration ranks adds to the United States’ $2.7 trillion health care bill and stands in stark contrast with other developed countries, where top-ranked hospitals have only skeleton administrative staffs and where health care workers are generally paid less. And many experts say it’s bad value for health care dollars.

Medicine’s Top Earners Are Not the M.D.s - NYTimes.com

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Heads Of Largest Children's Hospitals Receive Big Salaries And Rich Benefits - Kaiser Health News

Heads Of Largest Children's Hospitals Receive Big Salaries And Rich Benefits - Kaiser Health News:

The pay packages have continued to climb even as the economy has languished and millions of Americans struggle to pay their health care bills. For some, the generous compensation raises questions about the mission of children’s hospitals, which operate as tax-exempt charities.

"Hospital CEOs, including those at children's hospitals, are among the most lavishly compensated executives in the nonprofit field," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group based in Chicago.

"These seven-figure CEO pay packages make it hard for nonprofit hospitals to justify their tax-exempt status," he added. "If hospital CEO compensation were more in line with other large nonprofits then there could be more funding for community benefits such as free or discounted health care or important medical research."

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A glimpse at the high pay for children's hospital CEOs - Sacramento Living - Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health | Sacramento Bee

A glimpse at the high pay for children's hospital CEOs - Sacramento Living - Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health | Sacramento Bee:

"Hospital CEOS, including those at children's hospitals, are among the most lavishly compensated executives in the nonprofit field," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group based in Chicago. "If hospital CEO compensation were more in line with other large nonprofits then there could be more funding for community benefits such as free or discounted health care or important medical research."

In 2009, an advocacy group for nonprofit hospitals and other health care groups warned its members that the pay packages were coming under increasing scrutiny. "Boards would be wise to streamline their executive compensation programs to make them less tempting targets," a report prepared for the Alliance for Advancing Nonprofit Health Care stated.

The report pointed to cars, bonuses, generous retirement payouts and country club memberships as likely to attract criticism. "Many nonprofit organizations have been pressing their luck by imitating patterns in the for-profit sector," it noted.

That year, CEO compensation at the 25 largest independent children's hospitals ranged from a high of nearly $6 million to a low of $686,125, records show.

In all, CEOs collected more than $38 million, including deferred income and supplemental retirement awards, for an average of $1.5 million each.

If you are interested in looking up data for your own hospital or for any non-profit, go to Guidestar at http://www2.guidestar.org/Home.aspx and search for the organization. When you have found it, go to the Form 990 section (you will have to register - it's free). Then you will have to look for either page 7, which is where the data may be, or go to an appendix/attachment at the end. Happy hunting.
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Critical State of Top Wages at Publicly Financed Hospitals - NYTimes.com

Critical State of Top Wages at Publicly Financed Hospitals - NYTimes.com:

At Bronx-Lebanon, a hospital that exists only by the grace and taxed fortunes of the people of New York State, the chief executive was paid $4.8 million in 2007 and $3.6 million in 2008, records show. At NewYork-Presbyterian, a hospital system that receives nearly half a billion dollars annually in public money, the chief executive was paid $9.8 million in 2007 and $2.8 million in 2008.

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