Many Texas hospitals, including Paris Regional Medical Center, are temporarily furloughing workers and adjusting hours in response to the financial impact caused by COVID-19.
PRMC, like all hospitals across the country fighting COVID-19 on the front lines of patient care, have had to manage the business impact they are experiencing due to significant decreases in volume and the utilization of services.
“Declines in utilization are a result of people staying home and practicing smart social distancing, and also because of our decision to reschedule elective and non-urgent procedures. When clinically feasible, in an effort to preserve critical resources needed to care for patients during this global pandemic,” said PRMC CEO Steve Hyde.
As a result, they have made the difficult decision to place employees serving in certain functions (approximately 30 individuals) on a temporary leave of absence with partial pay equaling 25 percent of their salary for their time on leave.
“We also have been aggressively flexing staff to align to the volume and acuity of patients we are seeing – a practice that is regularly implemented at our hospital but is being leveraged to a greater extent right now. Additionally, salary reductions have been put into effect for the executive team,” explained Hyde.
He also went on to say that the decisions having to be made by the hospital’s leaders this past week hasn’t been an easy task.
“To now flex staff, place employees on temporary leave, and protect our resources are not easy, and they are personal,” he said. “However, I am grateful to have the support from a company like LifePoint that is committed to both serving our patients and to taking care of our people during this very trying time.”
Hyde was unable to say what the timeline was for those affected by the temporary changes but hopes it won’t be for an extended amount of time.
