Providence hospital 'let's go' of 68 crna's sounds fishy

allnurses Guide · Jan 3, 2016

I came across this article in the Detroit free press. It's worth reading the comments there since the article does not offer enough information.
68 nurses say St. John Providence fired them in dispute
I am curious as to what other crna's think.
FYI I am hospice not crna.
Tried to edit my title to 'of' from 'off' but couldn't.

The CRNAs were being coerced into signing a vague contract that did not include all the details of hours, vacation/leave, compensation, and would have eliminated the ability to moonlight at other local facilities. The anesthesiologist that was awarded the contract refused to negotiate and so the CRNAs decided to band together and not sign the contract effectively ending their employment at the first of year with that hospital.

chopwood carrywater · Jan 4, 2016

There also is talk that the retirement accounts of the nurses will be managed by....

The wife of the dr who just recently started this venture.

The more I've read, the more it sounds like a money grab by the dr. I'm sure there's more dirt to the story that has yet to come out. Maybe this dr thought the crna's were sniffing their own fumes and wouldn't notice.

gazpaz · Jan 5, 2016

It's a really unfortunate situation. The Michigan68 actually raised money and hired a lawyer to attempt to negotiate the contract and obtain all company policies and procedures to review prior to signing a new job contract. There were issues with not all of the policies being available for review, the management of retirement funds, scheduling procedures and personality of Dr. Largo (the company owner). There was reportedly an issue with one of the MI68 putting up a cartoon on her FB page (no names named in it), but apparently Largo didn't find it funny and threatened her with a defamation lawsuit. Also a question of kickbacks for the outsourced anesthesia contract and money going to company to "supplement" Medicare reimbursement.

Those who who refused to sign the contract, the hospital told them that it was a sign of "voluntary resignation" - none of the MI68 can apply for unemployment because of this or was offered a severance package. Some individuals have worked there for 20+ years, one employee decided to have her labor induced early while she still had health care coverage....

Very unfortunate and sad, but also most likely a sign of things to come. Many hospitals are staring to bid out anesthesia contracts to national groups in order to cut costs.

jwk · Jan 7, 2016

My guess is there is a whole other side to this story that has not been talked about - what led the hospital to this point that they decided to move the anesthesia contract to a private company?

I'll be the first to say I thought the original offer presented to the CRNA's left much to be desired as far as details. I wouldn't sign a contract either without knowing what I was agreeing to, so from that standpoint, I totally agree with them. But, by their own admission, they pretty much had free rein on the schedule and received a ton of overtime. Anesthesia, whether provided by hospitals or by a private group/management company, is still a business. Even non-profits can't lose money indefinitely. Somebody stepped up and offered the hospital an alternative that saved them money. Whether that's a good move long term or not remains to be seen, but by all accounts, everything has been running fine at these two hospitals since the new group took over. I have no idea if any of the "Michigan68" ended up working with the new group, but if they had no alternative employment options, it would not surprise me if some changed their minds at the last minute and went to work with the new group - they had that option available to them till the last day.

For better or worse, and I hope it's not worse since my group was just acquired by a management company, this is the direction anesthesia is headed, at least until bundled payments to the hospitals becomes reality and the hospital controls who gets what piece of the pie for the whole hospitalization. I will thankfully be retired by that point.