Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen is donating 100 percent of his pay for two months to a fund that provides financial support to the company's employees.
In a March 31 letter to employees, Mr. Hazen said HCA has seen a significant drop in patient volume as a result of COVID-19, and many of the company's outpatient facilities, clinics and departments have shut down. Though many hospitals and health systems across the nation have been forced to furlough or lay off employees due to the financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Hazen said HCA hopes to avoid taking those measures.
For employees who are called-off or affected by the closure of a facility, HCA will try to redeploy them to other facilities with high patient volume. Employees who cannot be redeployed will receive 70 percent of their base pay for up to seven weeks.
"When we started our planning to respond to this massive public health emergency, we did it with the goal of protecting our employees and protecting our physicians so that we could best serve our patients," Mr. Hazen wrote in the letter to employees. "This protection included clinical guidelines, training, and PPE, but as importantly, protection for our employees from loss of job. So far, we have achieved that goal, and now we will continue to support you with our pandemic pay continuation programs."
To help support the company and its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, HCA's top executives and board of directors are giving up all or part of their compensation. HCA's senior leadership team is taking a 30 percent pay cut until the COVID-19 pandemic passes and Mr. Hazen is donating his pay in April and May to the HCA Hope Fund, a charity that provides assistance to employees with proven financial needs. The board of directors is waiving their cash compensation for the rest of 2020, allowing the company to make an additional contribution to the HCA Hope Fund.
HCA, which operates more than 180 hospitals across the U.S., ended 2019 with net income of $3.5 billion on revenues of $51.3 billion. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the company said it expected 2020 revenues of $53.5 billion to $55.5 billion.
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