PA Local Hospital Laid Off 210 workers

[Sparky]

I thought this may be an interesting discussion, while we are out trying to find jobs in our field and lucky to get our foot in the door, this is what others are facing who had their jobs! Today you just don't know if it is worth to continue your education and to pursue the field you want or just accept what you have until things get better, that's if they get better?

Blog from local news channel in Philadelphia, PA.........................

Reading Hospital (Reading, PA) laid off 210 workers while eliminating another 181 positions through attrition. Hospital officials say the layoffs are a result of a drop in surgeries, costs associated with the affordable health act and reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments. The employees who were excorted out of the building, they said, "they were blindsided, receiving little notice of the layoffs before Tuesday."

 

[Alicia Scott]

It would be interesting to see what positions were laid off. I am seeing an influx of positions opening up. Texas right now is booming. They are scrambling to keep enough people. Still it is important to keep yourself marketable. Find out what is the need in your area.

 

[Sparky]

Here is some information on what I researched on who lost their jobs.................Article from the "Reading Eagle" local newspaper in Reading PA - still researching.

QUOTED......

"I don't know that most of the jobs have been eliminated specifically through the electronic records system," Sucher said. "But easily about 65 percent are clerical staff."

She said 63 secretaries in health system doctors' offices were laid off along with six nurses throughout the system. Officials refused to a provide further specific account of the layoffs.

Sucher said only that the rest of the layoffs were registration clerks, nursing unit secretaries and transcriptionists.

 

[Lori Woods]

It would be interesting to see what positions were laid off. I am seeing an influx of positions opening up. Texas right now is booming. They are scrambling to keep enough people. Still it is important to keep yourself marketable. Find out what is the need in your area.

Nice to hear Texas is good for a coder as my sister in law just moved to Austin & she's been trying to persuade me to move there since. Although she did mention some sketchy driving conditions on the confusing highways systems that made Denver seem easy lol.

 

[Alicia Scott]

Houston is supposed to be hideous. Austin wasn't bad really. We lived in St. Louis for 4 years and Austin was nothing compared to it. Actually I didn't think St. Louis was bad but they did have traffic jams from 4:30 to 5:30 from people coming in and out of the city for work. All you do is stay off the interstate.

On a side note Houston is in the top 3 for pay scale for coders in the nation.

 

[kayal]

On the subject of hospitals laying off employees as noted above, many of the public don't realize that even nurses (even long time experienced ones) are getting laid off nationwide and having difficulty finding new jobs in the field. The old adage, "There will always be sick people, a nurse won't have any trouble finding a job," is not true any more. Through no fault of their own, many of these nurses find themselves unable to find another nursing job, and end up reverting to something like a retail job-a far cry from the income they had been accustomed to as an RN. Many nurses (me included) are having to look for something to apply their many years of medical experience to, such as coding, and that is why I am a CCO coding student, and once getting my CPC, I want to take CCO's CPC-H course, and whatever else they offer. I am advising any person in nursing school or thinking about it, that they cannot rely on just that as their lifelong career any more-that they should take another major or minor degree in another field and even consider coding. It is always a good thing to have a second career you can fall back on.