Our community hospital just furloughed 20% of employees...

[elias7]

Had stored money for 2 months, but now needs to clamp down. Don’t know if other hospitals, companies, corporations have staved off layoffs for a couple months in similar fashion, but I sense a second wave of unemployment coming as opening companies start to realize they can’t get out of 1st or 2nd gear for a while... I am speculating with an N of 1, so this is just anecdotal.

[MRDAWG]

1. Use your community health services!

or you lose it.

[DeminPennswoods]

2. In Pennsylvania, think that's a big reason

hospitals are now allowed to resume elective and needed, but could be put off, surgeries.

[Freddie]

3. People putting off elective surgery

And some people staying home when they should have gotten medical attention. Read a good article by a NY ER doc that he’s now seeing complications from diabetes that could have been avoided. Personally I have a broken tooth but my dentist is only seeing emergencies and I can live with this a while longer.

[mitch96]

4. After working in the Hospital system for over 40 years you see patterns

Like if you have questions on why... follow the money and who wants power..
In this case it's the pattern of hospitals wanting you to bust your ass when they want you and then furlough/fire or cut hours when they don't need you... BUT you better snap to if they want you back. Happens too many times to not be a "coincidence"...
I had one supervisor that would look at the days schedule and send half the crew home if the sched was light..... Only to get bit in the ass when the emergency room and outpatient "call ins" exploded.. He/she would frantically start calling people to drop what they are doing at home and come back to work "for the good of the patients and community"... Yeah right. He/she did not want the people up stairs looking to see why services were not being met and who was to blame...
Not responsible....... blame....
He/she did not last long... Got caught in hospital politics and was the perfect scape goat.. Ha!
YMMV
m

[duforsure]

5. Trump and GOP dragging their feet

With their additional stimulus will cause this to be much worse, and cause it to last much longer. Our communities are getting stiffed by trump, and the GOP now, and just like trump does to contractors. He always stiffs everyone , and always lies about what he'll do. Then he comes up with his bs excuses all the time. He will corrupt anything the Congress passes and he signs.

[dalton99a]

6. 1.4 Million Health Jobs Have Been Lost (NYT)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/upshot/health-jobs-plummeting-virus.html

Why 1.4 Million Health Jobs Have Been Lost During a Huge Health Crisis
The industry used to be recession-proof. Not anymore. The postponement of elective procedures has crushed the bottom line.
By Margot Sanger-Katz
May 8, 2020

...

A sudden drop in health spending and employment amid a pandemic that is overloading hospitals with sick patients might seem like a paradox. But it reflects how the health industry tends to make its money: Treating patients for a deadly illness is far less profitable than offering them elective surgeries. When the federal government asked hospitals to stop such procedures to free up capacity, that changed their economics profoundly.

And even if various governments across the nation hadn’t then ordered such a pause, many patients would have probably avoided doctors’ offices and hospitals to lessen the risk of contracting the coronavirus. Independent medical practices have seen huge reductions in their business, as some patients connect with doctors virtually, while many others patient visits have simply vanished.

In previous recessions, the health industry has not taken such a hit. Because most Americans have health insurance, health services are more insulated from the business cycle than other kinds of spending. The biggest users of the system are older Americans. Besides being likelier to have health problems, they also tend to have comprehensive insurance coverage through Medicare and a stable source of income from Social Security. The Medicaid program, which is structured to allow people to enroll when their incomes fall, tends to offer access to health care for the poor, even if their jobs disappear.

But lately Medicare beneficiaries, the age group at highest risk of serious disease or death from the coronavirus, have been particularly spooked from seeking medical care. And emergency rooms have reported shocking declines in visits for what doctors had always thought of as life-threatening emergencies. A recent survey of nine major U.S. hospitals showed visits for a common but serious kind of heart attack have fallen by nearly 40 percent. Those declines were seen even in places without major coronavirus outbreaks.

[forthemiddle]

7. I work for a nationwide hospital consulting company

We have contracts through major hospital systems in almost every State. We contract administrative workers to all of them on either a remote work from home status, or on site audits and billing services.

Since early April 95% of our employees have been put on furlough because the vast majority of hospitals in the nation are running on low census. They have not only put the contracts on hold, they have also been putting their own staff on furlough. Hospitals run on thin margins, and the budget is met through elective surgeries and routine care.

The hospitals in the hot spots are busy, the rest of the country not so much. Many states are now slowly starting to do more and more non urgent procedures, so some of my colleagues have been called back, but we are hearing that we are in it for the long haul.