A pharmacy technician recently accused Sparrow Health of "excessive" recordkeeping and administration fees for the system's retirement plan, according to court documents filed Nov. 9.
The seven-hospital system based in Lansing, Mich., failed to "timely remove their high-cost recordkeeper, Transamerica Retirement Solutions," according to the suit. The plaintiff, Amanda Jones, worked at different Sparrow locations from 2000 through May 2014. Since 2017, Ms. Jones has been a pharmacy technician at Charlotte, Mich.-based Hayes Green Beach Memorial Hospital, which merged with a Sparrow hospital in 2019.
In 2020, the retirement plan amassed more than $550 million in assets among less than 10,000 people who were part of the plan.
"The Plan thus had substantial bargaining power regarding Plan fees and expenses," the lawsuit, which was filed as a class-action suit, says. "Defendants, however, did not regularly monitor Transamerica to ensure that it remained the prudent and objectively reasonable choice."
Sparrow Health declined to comment on the case.