Last week, Memorial Hermann hospital announced it will layoff 350 employees.
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This will be the hospital’s second round of cuts in less than a year.
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In a statement, the interim President Chuck Stokes said the layoffs would not “impact direct patient care.”
Stokes went on to say the state of healthcare in Houston is uncertain at the moment, due to “escalated costs and declining reimbursements,” as he provided.
Professor Vivian Ho of Rice University’s Baker Institute said fluctuations in the oil and gas job market could be to blame for declining revenues in the healthcare industry.
That decrease in revenue means pressure to make up costs elsewhere.
In an interview with KPRC, Ho speculated on the situation:
“There were a lot of people who had excellent insurance in oil and gas sector jobs. They lost those jobs and lost that insurance, so all the large institutions probably saw significant drops in demand.”
Industry analysts agree uncertainty around healthcare as a whole in the U.S. is also probably a contributing factor.
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With Congress trying to pass a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, both providers and individuals are wondering about their future.