Crozer-Keystone to cut 250 positions, citing $15M loss

Crozer-Keystone Health System, the biggest health-care provider in Delaware County, said Thursday that it was cutting 250 positions, after losing $15.7 million since July 1.

"Changes in health care continue to have a negative effect on Crozer-Keystone and many other health-care providers in our region and throughout the country," Crozer said in a statement.

The layoffs at Crozer, which employed 6,800, will include doctors and a "significant number of managers," the statement said. All will receive severance and continued benefits.

Bill Cruice, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals, a union representing workers at Crozer, said he expected enough registered nurses to accept voluntary layoffs to avoid involuntary layoffs.

In its statement, Crozer blamed the need for job cuts on a decline in hospital admissions, decreased state and federal funding, and an increase in the number of patients with either no insurance or covered by Medicaid, which on average pays less than half the amount paid by commercial insurers.

Those trends show up in the financial and operating results that Crozer has reported for the six-month periods ended Dec. 31 in recent years. That period covers the first half of Crozer's fiscal year.

Crozer's operating revenue was $390 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, $15 million, or 3.7 percent, less than it was in the six months ended Dec. 31, 2011. During that same period, admissions have tumbled to 15,484 from 17,263.

Crozer's operating loss for the first six months of the current fiscal year was $11.5 million. In the same period a year ago, Crozer reported operating earnings of $5.6 million.

@InqBrubaker