Becker's Hospital Review

21 CFO / FINANCE St. Charles says it overpaid employees by $2M, seeks money back By Kelly Gooch S t. Charles Health System in Bend, Ore., is asking employees to pay back roughly $2 million it says they received in overpayments, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Aug. 12. e health system is seeking the money aer a December ransomware attack on human resources management company Ultimate Kronos Group. e attack affected the soware platforms health systems and other companies use for scheduling, timekeeping, payroll and human resources. As a result, St. Charles was unable to access employee timecard data from Nov. 28 to Jan. 22, the health system said in a statement shared with Becker's. "During the outage, we did our best to pay people as accurately as possible for the time they workedbased on the hours they reported," St. Charles said. "One of the unfortunate impacts of the outage was that some of our employees were underpaid, and some were overpaid. Over the last several months, we have focused our efforts on making financially whole those employees who were underpaid. We're now at the point where we need to recoup the $2 million that was overpaid." More specifically, St. Charles is asking 2,358 employees who were overpaid to repay the money, an average of about $780 per worker, St. Charles spokesperson Lisa Goodman said in an email to e Bulletin. A total of 1,784 people will owe $1,000 or less, and St. Charles is offering different payment options for workers, including a "payment plan, a lump sum payment or a reduction of earned time off (vacation time) to offset their balance owed," Ms. Goodman told the publication. Scott Palmer, director of communications for the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents St. Charles nurses, said the amounts range from less than $100 to as much as $3,000 for some workers, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. He also said the union was set to issue a cease-and-desist letter to St. Charles on Aug. 12 so employees would stop receiving letters seeking repayment, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. e union "will vigorously defend its members rights to be free from this unlawful activity," according to a copy of the letter obtained by e Bulletin. "e fact that St. Charles believes it made an error does not surprise anyone. St. Charles' use of unlawful debt collection demands against its employees to correct its own error is beyond the pale." e union contends some workers did not find out about the alleged overpayments until Aug. 11. St. Charles argues that it has kept employees in the loop in recent months via emails and town hall meetings. "While we recognize this is an inconvenience for our employees, we've communicated from the beginning that this is a step we'd eventually need to take," the health system said. "We have made every effort to keep our employees apprised of the situation." St. Charles has been working to recover from financial strains. e health system announced in May it would lay off 105 caregivers and eliminate 76 vacant positions. In July, St. Charles also announced the elimination of two executive leadership positions. n 5 specialties that drive the most revenue to hospitals By Ayla Ellison P ayment models in healthcare are evolving, but physicians still drive revenue to hospitals through patient, procedure, test and treatment volume, according to an analysis by Merritt Hawkins released July 18. Physicians generate an average of about $2.4 million each year for their affiliated hospitals. The amount of revenue physicians drive to hospitals varies across specialties. Below are the five physician specialties that generate the highest average annual net revenue for hospitals: 1. Cardiology (interventional): $3.48 million 2. Orthopedic surgery: $3.29 million 3. Gastroenterology: $2.97 million 4. Family medicine: $2.11 million 5. OB-GYN: $2.02 million n OHSU Health names Jennifer Doll new CFO By Hayley DeSilva Portland, Ore.-based OHSU Health has named Jennifer Doll CFO and senior vice president, effective immediately. Ms. Doll has been serving as interim CFO since October 2021, according to a press release shared with Becker's Aug. 16. "Ms. Doll stands out as an exemplary leader with a deep understanding of the complex mechanisms that fund Oregon's academic health center," John Hunter, MD, CEO and executive vice president of OHSU Health, said in the release. "I am grateful for her service as interim CFO, and am confident that her expertise, along with that of the entire health care leadership team, will help us navigate these challenging times." Prior to this position, Ms. Doll was the vice president of hospital finance for the health system. She also spent 11 years with University of Missouri Health in Columbia, Mo. Her accomplishments include managing OHSU Health's Intergovernmental Transfer Program, supplying financial models for the system's Hillsboro (Ore.) Medical Center's new graduate medical education program and transitioning OHSU from annual budgeting to a rolling forecast model. n

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