UC Irvine Health Monday began laying off 175 employees due to higher costs and less reimbursements from Medicaid and private insurers, a spokesman said.
UCI Health earlier eliminated about 80 positions through attrition or by not filling vacant positions, said John Murray, a spokesman for UCI Health.
“It’s part of a larger, strategic plan to improve efficiencies, cut some costs, renegotiate contracts to get some lower costs, things like that,” Murray said.
Since healthcare reform, “there have been some challenges in the healthcare market,” Murray said. “Reimbursements are somewhat flat, and there’s an increasing demand on academic centers across the country.
“Academic medical centers like UCLA, NYU, Stanford, all these systems have to support an academic enterprise, a school of medicine, as well as research, so our costs are higher and we have to become more efficient,” he said.
The changes in healthcare insurance have led to an influx of more patients, Murray said.
“We found ourselves dealing with a lot more complex cases, a lot of referrals from community hospitals,” hr said.
Many of the employees were working in administrative positions.
Employees were being informed Monday, with the process expected to continue through Wednesday or Thursday, Murray said.
“No faculty members, no doctors, very few nurses” are being laid off, Murray said. “We’ve tried to structure this to not remove any bedside care providers.”
The health organization has set up some new outpatient offices and specialty care centers, which are expected to provide more revenue in the future and help cut costs, Murray said.
–City News Service