Struggling to lure paying patients, Jackson Health lays off ‘small number’ of workers
After failing to reach patient admission targets for several months and seeing more uninsured patients, Miami-Dade’s public hospital network, Jackson Health System, has laid off an undisclosed number of workers.
Asked about recent layoffs at the county’s taxpayer-owned hospital system, which has an annual budget of $1.9 billion, Jennifer Piedra, a spokeswoman, replied with a written statement that described Jackson Health as “stronger than ever.”
“A very small number of employees in administrative and clinical positions will be affected,” Piedra said in the statement, “the vast majority of whom will be reassigned to similar duties within the health system or offered early retirement.”
Because the majority of Jackson Health’s 12,500 full-time employees are represented by labor unions, Piedra said she could not disclose exact details of the reassignments.
Jackson Health administrators are due to begin collective bargaining negotiations with the hospital system’s labor unions, which represent nurses, doctors and other employees, in the summer.
In a quarterly financial statement addressed to elected officials in January, Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya reported that the hospital system has experienced “steady volume increases of uninsured patients.” Uninsured patients are a financial drain on the system, although its mission is to provide care to all Miami-Dade residents, regardless of ability to pay.
Because elective healthcare and other medical services typically decline at hospitals during the holidays, Jackson Health executives reported the hospital system lost an expected $3.2 million during that period.
Without tax dollars to shore up their funds to pay expenses, Jackson Health’s losses would be higher. The hospital system would have lost nearly $47 million from operations during January, more than administrators had expected for the month. For December, that number was $42.8 million.
Traditionally, Jackson Health’s operating costs have exceeded its patient revenues.
The public hospital system, which includes Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and campuses in North Miami Beach and South Miami-Dade, provides care to a large number of the county’s uninsured residents, operates nursing homes, and delivers medical care to inmates of Miami-Dade jails.
Jackson Health’s quarterly financial statement reported that providing medical care to county inmates, a service for which the hospital system generates no patient revenue, cost $12.7 million for the three months ending in December, while Jackson’s nursing homes for patients with complex medical conditions lost an additional $3.1 million during the same period.
To shore up Jackson Health’s operations, Miami-Dade taxpayers have voted in the past to dedicate property and sales taxes for the hospital system. For the year that ended on Sept. 30, 2018, Miami-Dade taxpayers had sent about $460 million in subsidies, according to budget documents.
Jackson Health administrators expect financial pressure to increase over the next two years. The hospital system will need to generate significant profits to pay its share of $1.7 billion needed for rebuilding and expansion projects that are funded, in part, with $830 million in public debt approved by county voters in 2013.
This story was originally published March 11, 2019 at 6:36 PM.
