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Hospitals are having a surprisingly tough time of things. I work for a very famous hospital in a small town in the American midwest, and we've (our IT departmen
by onychomys 7y ago
Hospitals are having a surprisingly tough time of things. I work for a very famous hospital in a small town in the American midwest, and we've (our IT department, that is) laid off all our contractors and the rest of us have mandatory furloughs coming up too. They're doing everything they can to not let us go, but some of us will probably end up getting sacked. And this is maybe the richest and most well-connected hospital in the entire world! Turns out that when you cancel all elective procedures (not only non-essential surgeries, but things like allergy testing and pediatric audiology work etc.), you can very quickly go from a billion dollars in the black (last year) to an estimated billion dollars in the red (this year). Just brutal.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoThis is kind of depressing.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 6nf 7y agoSame thing is happening in Australian hospitals, dentists, etc etc. All elective procedures are banned to keep the hospitals empty so suddenly a lot of income is gone. Everything is closing down.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIT security in hospitals is already lacking in general. Cutting all this staff is going to expose them to even worse situations. Obviously they can't make money they don't have magically appear but these layoffs will end up making things even worse.
- crazycapitlists 7y agoI mean your first problem there is having a capitalist healthcare system. It's absolutely insane the way the US funds its medical care. Hopefully you guys will see some improvements there in the next few years, and maybe even universal healthcare like an actual civilized society.
- onychomys 7y agoTrue, but that's a little above my pay grade. I'd just like to get my current project over to the SQA guys before we all go on extended unpaid holiday, lol.
- esel2k 7y agoHey, sad to hear that healthIT is not getting a better safety net. I am in healthtech startup and some sales were let go but the business is still up so development goes on. I was hoping that hospitals would get better funding after such a crisis and especially things like electronic or personal medical records for telehealth could get a strong support...but not the case as it seems.
- xiaolingxiao 7y agoHey onychomys, I am doing some research about the state of Tech and how it’s integrated into the healthcare system, and the insurance providers. Would it be ok if I asked you a few questions?
- catacombs 7y agoFor-profit hospitals are a stain on the American healthcare system. I worked for one of these facilities years ago, and elective surgery was the only thing the administrators cared about.
- twunde 7y agoIt's not just for-profit hospitals, non-profits are very focused on elective surgery as well. Why? Because elective surgery is the money maker for the business. Healthcare systems typically have profit margins between 1-4% with 4% being on the high side. For comparison SAAS businesses typically have profit margins of 70-95% [1]. 1 - https://www.lightercapital.com/blog/calculating-gross-margin-for-your-saas-business/ https://www.lightercapital.com/blog/calculating-gross-margin...
- areyousure 7y agoJust out of curiosity, is your comment about "for-profit hospitals" a non sequitur? Your parent comment refers to the Mayo Clinic, which is neither "for-profit" nor "a stain on the American healthcare system".
- sudosysgen 7y agoThe existence of for-profit healthcare is reasonably why hospitals have to shut departments in the middle of a pandemic to handle balance sheets. If for-profit healthcare didn't exist, I really don't see how the total amount of money going into a hospital would decrease right now.
- bitcurious 7y agoYou are conflating “for profit” with private. Most good hospitals are non profit, but private institutions. To help you understand how this could decrease revenue - my annual checkup is postponed by 6 months. This is true for everyone who had an annual checkup scheduled.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
- tarsinge 7y agoWe may disagree on political solutions, but I hope at this point everyone will acknowledge that in a society with otherwise so much wealth, health care shouldn't be that dysfunctional.
- ballenf 7y agoWill be very interesting to watch financial reports from health insurers. Premiums are the same, despite (almost) everyone consuming less health services. Can Covid costs (at current patient levels) make up for the loss of other claims? I'm doubtful, especially since some Covid costs are evidently borne by the federal government. The suffering of hospitals is circumstantial evidence that insurers are paying out less overall.
- Spooky23 7y agoNo, the covid costs are actually not terribly high. The other thing is that as millions of employees get laid off, millions of health insurance premiums stop getting paid.
- floatrock 7y ago> as millions of employees get laid off, millions of health insurance premiums stop getting paid. Failure mode of a system where healthcare is tied to employment -- works as long as people keep shuffling around, shatters when a systemic black swan comes along. And no, cobra doesn't address it. It's just a patch. Anyone actually pay cobra for more than a month or two? You quickly realize just how expensive employer group plans can be for an individual.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago> shatters when a systemic black swan comes along Well, whatever colour the swan is, a pandemic is no any unprecedented crisis. It's frankly more predictable than large scale earthquakes, but many people simply didn't give a shit to plan for it in advance.
- abandonliberty 7y ago>a systemic black swan comes along Nassim would like people to stop saying this. I view him as an authority on the subject. https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1244946738739179520 https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/124494673873917952...
- 7y ago
- alibaba_x 7y agoNebraska? The only Midwest place I could imagine with the best hospital in the world would be close to Warren Buffet.
- haste410 7y agoMayo Clinic in Rochester, MN?
- n-exploit 7y agoThis is correct.
- tren-hard 7y agoA friend of mine works in a finance dept at Mayo and is getting furloughed. FTE not a contractor. Quick edit: since he's been working there for the last 18ish months he has made it clear how poorly run and awful that place is to work for, sentiment is from way before covid.
- spelunker 7y agoI would imagine OP is talking about the Mayo Clinic.
- mywittyname 7y agoI was in the hospital for a procedure a few weeks ago and it was empty. I saw maybe three people who weren't staff the entire time.
- nitwit005 7y agoAren't they going to end up over-burdened soon, at least in some departments, due to all of the deferred surgeries and the like?
- RandallBrown 7y agoYes. My wife works at an orthopedic office as a PA and they're talking about how they'll probably have to work weekends just to catch up with the backlog of surgeries.
- erdos4d 7y agoMy stepfather is a doctor and reports the same. Unless you are actually swamped with COVID-19 cases, the lockdown is having the perverse effect that people are going to the hospital less often. Diseases in general are spreading less now, fewer accidents are happening, fewer elective procedures, along with a general fear of going to the hospital in general (presumably for fear of catching COVID-19 from someone there). He's seen fewer hours and staff cuts come from the situation.
- apozem 7y agoMy fiancee is a veterinarian, and it is the same there. * Absolutely no overtime for hourly employees (the salaried doctors, of course, do 18-hour shifts) * Doctors in elective departments (dermatology) are furloughed * They've all but confirmed the techs will have layoffs
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ivalm 7y agoI work for a large healthcare org. We just had a hiring freeze and have to work hard to justify extending existing contracts with our contractors. At the same time, I am unsure how this will long term impact the org. Utilization of most services is down but we did have to buy a lot of ventilators/etc; also, I imagine health insurance membership will decline.
- hkiely 7y agoI’m guessing this is Mayo Clinic?