The demand for behavioral health services continues to climb, but staff turnover within the sector remains a widespread challenge for providers across the country, Universal Health Services executives said July 25 during the company's second-quarter earnings call.
"Behavioral turnover tends to be probably twice what acute care is. And that creates a lot of inefficiency. So even though we're hiring a lot of people they're leaving," CFO Steve Filton said. "This is not just a UHS issue. I think it's an industry-wide issue."
King of Prussia, Pa.-based UHS, which comprises 333 behavioral health inpatient facilities and 27 acute-care hospitals, said it is focusing on reducing its behavioral staff turnover rate through various initiatives.
Mentorship programs and educational and career development opportunities are some of the areas UHS is prioritizing, "so that when we hire people they really have an incentive to want to stay with the organization to stay with the facility," Mr. Filton said.
"I do believe that we can reduce our turnover rate, which is a practical objective," he said. "That will be one way in which we'll be able to satisfy some of that outstanding behavioral demand that we've really been unable to satisfy as much as we'd like to in recent periods."
Many healthcare workers left the subacute industry, including behavioral, nursing home, home health and skilled nursing facilities, during the COVID-19 pandemic to work in acute care settings where they were able to make a significant premium to their existing salaries.
The behavioral sector has been slow to rebound from this healthcare worker exodus.
"Acute care compensation rates were always higher than sub-acute care compensation rates, but that gap widened dramatically during the pandemic," Mr. Filton said. "I do think it has since narrowed … but it really got to be an issue."
Some nurses left UHS to make three times their salary in an acute care setting during the pandemic, according to Mr. Filton.
"Raising salary by $2 an hour was not going to have any impact, which is why I don't think you saw dramatic pressure on our behavioral rates during the pandemic and why … you're seeing moderation in our salaries and wages per patient day."
UHS believes its behavioral workforce challenges will not be solved by higher premium payments and incentive payments. The most significant impact will come from making workers see the rewards of working in the behavioral sector and generating career opportunities for them in a place where they are going to be valued, Mr. Filton said.