Radiology provider Mednax is reducing top executives’ pay by 50% and implementing salary reductions and furlough days for nonclinical employees.
The Florida-based physician services firm is also forgoing cash payments to its board of directors, while enacting “significant” expense reductions across its clinical operations, it announced Friday, April 10.
“These decisions were not made easily, but we are confident that they will help enable us to weather this unprecedented and challenging period,” CEO Roger Medel, MD, said in a statement. “The steps we have taken, and are taking, are a meaningful part of our plan to position Mednax to be here for our patients, our healthcare partners and our employees long into the future.”
Headquartered in Sunrise, Florida, Mednax employs some 800 radiologists, while also offering prenatal, neonatal, pediatric and anesthesia services. Officials first revealed on March 25 that Mednax has experienced “meaningful” declines in imaging volume during the coronavirus pandemic.
A few weeks later, company officials are detailing their strategies to help “mitigate the significant anticipated impact of COVID-19 on the company.” Along with 50% pay cuts to senior executives, they’ve temporarily reduced base salaries for other key managers, according to the announcement. Leaders have “significantly reduced” third-party expenditures, too, while enacting cost cuts across its clinical operations. Mednax did not immediately respond to a Radiology Business request for further details on Monday.
Officials revealed last month that much of the decline in imaging volume is of the nonurgent variety. Mednax radiologists continue to deliver more urgent care services, with clinicians employed by its vRad division diagnosing one of the first U.S. COVID-19 cases using chest CT imaging.
To help caregivers further, Mednax is refining its natural language processing software to identify the incidence of viral pneumonia and typical findings of the virus in lungs via chest CT. That clinical tool is connected to more than 2,000 partner facilities across the country, and will run retrospectively to monitor the disease’s spread.
“If successful, this cutting-edge diagnostic tool could serve as an effective tracker of the disease’s progression throughout the country and provide new insights for imaging findings for COVID-19 patients,” Mednax said in its release.
Officials noted that they’ve also created a “virtual doctors’ lounge” for physicians across specialties as a means to maintain social distancing while also allowing for clinical collaboration. And they’ve convened company-wide and specialty-specific task forces to stay abreast of recommendations from the CDC and others on best practices during the pandemic.
“We are committed to our mission to take great care of the patient, every day and in every way, and will continue to support our clinical and nonclinical workforce as we take every precaution possible to ensure their safety, and in turn our patients’ access to care,” Medel added in the statement.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.