Should We Cry for Non-Profit Hospital System CEOs Paid Less than For-Profit CEOs?

Two recent articles (here and here) in Modern Healthcare providing an update on the compensation of CEOs of non-profit hospital systems raised new questions.The CEOs' Compensation The first article documented the rich compensation of the top paid CEOs of non-profit US hospital systems.  A summary of their total compensation:-  Donald Faulk (now retired), Central Georgia Health System - $8 million -  George Halvorson, Kaiser Permanente - $7.9 million-  Jeffrey Romoff, UPMC - $6.1 million -  Pat Fry, Sutter Health - $5.2 million-  Gregory Beier (retired), Novant Health  - $5.1 million-  Dr Steve Safyer, Montefiore Medical Center - $5 million-  David Bernd, Sentara - $4.6 millionThe Usual Talking Points The articles in combination provided the usual talking points as justification for this compensation.   We have noted that nearly every attempt made to defend the outsize compensation given hospital and health system executives involves the same talking points.   We first listed the talking points here, and then provided additional examples of their use here, here here, here and here.   They are:- We have to pay competitive rates- We have to pay enough to retain at least competent executives, given how hard it is to be an executive- Our executives are not merely competitive, but brilliant.So true to form, we found in the Modern Healthcare articles these justifications of the executives multimillion dollar pay.Comp...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Novant Health UPMC Sentara hospitals executive compensation perverse incentives peer benchmarking Kaiser Permanente hospital systems Sutter Health Source Type: blogs