ST. LOUIS - BJC officials announced the company is working on furlough plan for employees, pay cuts and suspension of programs because of COVID-19 and its drastic economic impact on its business.
BJC officials said it had instituted several steps since the beginning of the outbreak to ensure staff had enough protective gear and the medical equipment needed to treat COVID-19 patients. Only emergency surgeries have been performed since March 23 and construction projects have been halted. BJC said in the next 12 days, company execs will take additional measures to deal with the affects of the pandemic.
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"As the COVID-19 pandemic reached our region, these same caregivers confronted this virus with the same commitment that has been the hallmark of BJC – putting the needs of patients first," Rich Liekweg, President & CEO of BJC HealthCare. "We supported these caregivers by making the necessary and appropriate decisions to ensure we had the staff, equipment and supplies to care for those diagnosed with the virus. We cancelled elective surgeries and procedures, purchased millions of pieces of personal protective equipment to keep our team members safe and established remote testing sites to serve the community.
“Each of these decisions was the right one for our team members and the patients to whom they provide care. However, the negative impacts on BJC’s operations and finances have been significant and we have announced to our 31,000 caregivers that we would be undertaking additional expense savings measures to align our costs with our current and projected reimbursements for the care we are providing."
Liekweg continued: "Even though BJC is not the first and will not be the last health care provider to announce such changes, we know this was a difficult message for our valued team members to receive.” “Impacting our employees, is something we do as a last resort. We took other actions immediately to reduce our expenses, including freezing hiring for all non-patient facing positions, stopping all business travel and suspending almost all construction projects. Unfortunately, these actions were not enough to bring our spending in line with payments for the care we continue to provide.”
BJC officials said over the next two weeks, it will implement additional measures that will directly affect all employees who work for BJC, including suspending its 401(k)/403(b) employer match for the remainder of the year; delaying annual salary increases for all employees and reducing those already in place for senior executives; reducing work hours for some exempt employees; reducing total pay for directors, vice presidents, presidents and all members of the executive leadership team, including the CEO, between 5 percent and 25 percent; and identifying employees across the organization to be furloughed for a minimum of eight weeks.
“For our team members who are furloughed, BJC will continue to cover the full costs of their medical and dental premiums during their furlough period,” said Jackie Tischler, BJC Chief People Officer. Furloughed team members will be able to apply for unemployment benefits that are significantly enhanced through the federal CARES Act. “We will work with our team members to help. “We will work with our team members to help answer their questions and provide resources to help them through this process and as our patient volumes return, we look forward to welcoming them back to BJC,” said Tischler.
While working carefully and diligently to resume elective surgeries and procedures, it is anticipated that patient volumes will not return as quickly as BJC hopes. “We will work to respond to new expectations and demands of our patients and nothing will be more important than ensuring our patients feel safe in our care and that our caregivers feel safe delivering care in our hospital and ambulatory facilities,” said Liekweg.
Liekweg concluded, “While this is news we never wanted to have to share, we are confident that we will weather this storm together. Our focus will be on ensuring our organization is able to continue providing high-quality care consistent with our mission for generations to come.”
