Baylor Scott & White Health's plan to outsource, lay off or retrain 1,700 employees is expected to save the health system $600 million over a five-year span, according to The Austin American-Statesman.
The Dallas-based system announced plans for the restructuring in January. Employees affected by the change work in information technology, billing, revenue cycle management and other support services. The health system said outsourcing the finance and IT jobs and other support services will help it improve efficiencies and focus on reducing costs in non-core business areas.
About two-thirds of the 1,700 employees will be joining third-party RCM, IT, billing or support staff vendors. About 600 to 650 positions will be eliminated.
Baylor Scott & White said that employees whose positions are being eliminated will be invited to participate in retraining programs.
"To make an even greater investment in frontline care, Baylor Scott & White is announcing a change in how it operates certain non-patient corporate services," Baylor said in Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letters obtained by the American-Statesman. "Our goal is that every impacted employee will be offered a comparable employment option, inside or outside of BSWH, and no one will miss a paycheck because of this transition."
According to the WARN notice, 216 employees will be laid off in the Texas cities of Dallas, Round Rock and Austin by May 3, and the layoffs are expected to be permanent.