Citing costs and a declining birth rate, Copley Hospital says it's closing its birthing center. They say less than half of Lamoille County birthing families are choosing Copley to have their babies. Current prenatal patients will get information on how the closure affects them and their birthing plan. This comes after Vermont healthcare regulators have sounded the alarm on the cost of care in Vermont.
For ambulance agencies facing budget gaps and rising costs, aggressive collections offer a crucial source of revenue and a way to recoup unpaid bills when costs are rising. EMS leaders say they're forced to go after patients because insurance companies deny or underpay emergency transport claims. Patient advocates respond that the practices are out of step with efforts in North Carolina and across the country to reduce the aggressive collection of medical debt.
Providence Health & Services has laid off 134 employees across Oregon, part of an effort to cut costs amid growing financial pressures in the health care industry. The broader Providence system, headquartered in Renton, Washington, is taking similar restructuring steps across its operations in seven Western states. The Catholic not-for-profit health system said it has eliminated 600 full-time jobs across its 125,000-person workforce. Most of those are administrative or non-clinical positions, though some medical providers were also laid off.
Butler Hospital announced that it is beginning to post positions to permanently replace striking union employees on Tuesday. Care New England, Butler Hospital's health system, said the action is in response to the union's indefinite strike.
Norman Regional Health System has laid off 300 employees, 10% of its workforce, even cutting entire clinics. Exactly where those cuts were made isn't clear, but those layoffs include some of the open positions that will not be filled.
Holy Family Hospital is moving to shutter some services at its Haverhill campus, including the emergency department, less than a year after new owners took over the facility during the Steward Health Care collapse. An attorney for Holy Family Hospital, now owned by Lawrence General Hospital, wrote to healthcare regulators signaling that hospital officials want to close several dozen inpatient medical and surgical beds and the emergency department in Haverhill this fall.