Local Hospital Staff to Lose Jobs
Aug. 18–In anticipation of financial losses resulting from changes to TennCare, St. Mary’s Health System on Wednesday said seven to nine of its employees will lose jobs.
The changes come as part of a restructuring effort that eliminated both filled and unfilled positions in the health system, which operates hospitals in North Knoxville and Jefferson and Campbell counties and is building a hospital in Powell. The total number of eliminated positions wasn’t available Wednesday, but St. Mary’s President and CEO Debra London said none was in direct patient care.
“We regularly review our staffing levels to make sure that we are operating as responsibly as possible,” London said in a statement. “From our perspective, this is good stewardship and is particularly important right now, as we deal with the anticipated impact of TennCare changes on our health system.”
Though the practice of reviewing staffing numbers to make sure they match need is a regular practice for health systems, impending TennCare changes made St. Mary’s take an especially hard look at staffing over the past few months, Jerry Askew, senior vice president for marketing and philanthropy, said Wednesday.
“We looked at every single department, from administration to support services,” Askew said.
He said the health system tried to minimize the impact on employees, moving “most” of those whose positions were eliminated to lateral positions within St. Mary’s. The health system employs about 3,000 people.
“With TennCare, we’re all going to get hit hard,” he said. “We can’t afford to wait.”
Though hospital reimbursement from the state for treating TennCare patients is lower than reimbursement from most private insurance companies, hospitals often get no reimbursement for treating uninsured patients, many of whom cannot afford to pay their medical bills. Cuts to TennCare may double the number of uninsured people in Tennessee, health-care providers have said.
All Knoxville hospital systems have said they will not turn away TennCare disenrollees.
In June, The University of Tennessee Medical Center eliminated 65 positions, including 26 that were vacant, in response to “the potential impact of TennCare disenrollment and benefit changes.” None was in direct patient care.
At that time, London said St. Mary’s was “concerned” about TennCare changes but had “no plans for employee reduction.”
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