Hospitals Paid Out $120+ Million in Executive Pay as Healthcare Workers Struggle Under Staffing Crisis
WA Hospital Executives Received $20 Million in Pandemic Bonuses Alone
SEATTLE – New research on executive compensation depicts stark disparities in the priorities of Washington hospital executives. As half of healthcare workers say they’re likely to quit, with longstanding short-staffing issues being among their top reasons, hospital executives managed to pay themselves more than $120 million in total compensation in 2020.
The available data for Washington hospitals show that in 2020, while overwhelmed healthcare workers asked for retention measures to help address the staffing crisis but were ignored and frustrations mounted with traveling healthcare workers making more than permanent staff, hospital executives received:
$120.9 million in total pay, which includes benefits.
$110 million in base, bonuses and other incentives, and other reportable compensation.
$20.6 million in bonuses alone.
NOTE: This data is a floor, accounting for 69 hospitals out of the 92 listed licensed nonprofit or public hospitals in the state.
The current hospital staffing crisis was a long time in the making. For years healthcare workers warned hospital executives about short-staffing leading to unmanageable patient loads and staff burnout, but hospital executives continued to stretch as few staff as possible, putting profits before patient care. Throughout the pandemic, many hospitals have either offered insultingly small retention bonuses to current staff or denied calls for retention bonuses entirely, instead opting to spend tens of millions of dollars on temporary traveler contracts for nurses and other healthcare workers. But the newly compiled research begs the question, why didn’t hospital executives invest in adequate, safe staffing in Washington hospitals?
Some facility-specific highlights from the data:
Valley Medical Center, affiliated with UW Medicine, paid now-former CEO Rich Roodman a $7.4 million bonus in 2020. Union workers at Valley Medical Center are actively bargaining with UW Medicine administration and have submitted a retention bonus proposal, but administration has so far not provided retention bonuses to current healthcare workers. Additionally, UW Medicine reported a net profit of $48.1 million for the first quarter of FY 2022.
CommonSpirit Health (Virginia Mason Franciscan Health) paid CEO Lloyd Dean a $8.2 million bonus in 2020. Facilities like St. Joseph’s in Tacoma and Virginia Mason Medical Center resisted calls for measures that could help retain staff.
In 2019, Providence St. Joseph Health paid CEO Rod Hochman $7.1 million in total compensation, with $6.1 million in bonus/incentive compensation. As of 2020, Providence – which also runs two venture capital firms in downtown Seattle – had $25.6 billion in operating revenue and $15.2 billion in cash. Providence announced in the fall that they would provide one-time $1,000 "recognition bonuses" to staff.
Additional facility or system-specific data relevant to your coverage area can be provided upon request, if available.
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