Our hospital system just announced that they will be furloughing a “significant” number of employees for an unclear amount of time due to the pandemic. Expect to hear most other systems in the country do the same thing. Elective procedures are down 70-80%, visits down 40%, and supplies (especially PPE) have suddenly gone up 500% in price.
Our staff like cardio rehab are already off. CRNAs are thinking they have a couple weeks before their shifts start getting cut as electives are all on hold.
I'm private so I've got my own budget. My staff is good for 4 weeks hardstop. I don't have to do math for that. Just cut my paycheck to zero and keep moving. But I'll have to run the numbers after that. This was week one. Three to go. I won't be furloughing anyone but might have to cut hours or something if we aren't looking at an uptick in patient visit by week 6. Basically just crank down hours and my paycheck to meet the 2/3 patient load.
On the other hand, telemedicine has been a great boon for me to keep from being zero. And I've got an extensive hospitalist background so I suspect I can locums work as my private practice gets hammered if I needed to. I'd keep my staff going full time priming the pump for the other side of this with those funds. That spin up for hospitalist and intensivisit need should mirror the down time for outpatient visits. Then vice versa as we taper off.