Prisma Health Layoffs: Why Is The Healthcare Provider Cutting More Jobs?

Prisma Health, the largest private employer in South Carolina, has announced it is laying off 327 workers as it undergoes a restructuring of its organization.

The healthcare provider, which was formed just over two years ago, said it is looking to “improve operating efficiencies and streamline the organization,” which will include the elimination of 327 staff members out of a workforce of 32,000.

“The health-care environment in which we operate is becoming increasingly challenging for a variety of reasons, including lower reimbursements and increasing numbers of patients who are underinsured or uninsured,” Mark O’Halla, president and CEO at Prisma Health said in a statement.

Prisma Health, which has 18 hospitals under its nonprofit umbrella, said it has been integrating and consolidating functions within the company as it looks to cut costs. It has already cut 200 jobs, which it said were lost through attrition, vacancies, and consolidation.

Beyond the job cuts, Prisma Health said it will phase out South Carolina’s Greenville Memorial Hospital’s Subacute Unit in March with the Children’s Residential Program, also in Greenville, phased out in April.

The workers that will be affected by the layoffs received notification on Thursday. Prisma Health said that positions in administrative, corporate, and clinical areas throughout all its campuses were affected by the job cuts.

Severance pay is being offered to affected employees along with outplacement services. Workers may also apply for open jobs throughout the organization.

“We have already eliminated duplicative executive management positions, restructured leadership, and gained significant cost savings in supplies, technology and other areas,” O’Halla said.

“We are taking steps to ensure that everything we are doing – both clinical and non-clinical – is delivering quality and value. As part of this ongoing work, we have identified a number of additional expense-reduction strategies, many of which impact our workforce.

“These are difficult decisions, but we need to make them now so we can provide the quality care our patients deserve in a financially sustainable manner that positions us for future growth opportunities,” he added.

Prisma Health was formed out of Greenville Health System and Palmetto Health in 2017. It officially became Prisma Health in January 2019.