Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Journal
PLoS One
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0306571
PMID
39046937
PMCID
PMC11268666
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
7-24-2024
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Keywords
Salaries and Fringe Benefits, Chief Executive Officers, Hospital, Humans, Hospitals, Voluntary, Organizations, Nonprofit, United States
Abstract
Hospital CEO salaries have grown quickly over the past two decades. We investigate correlates of rising nonprofit hospital CEO pay between 2012 and 2019 by merging compensation data from Candid's IRS 990 forms with hospital data from the National Academy for State Health Policy Hospital Cost Tool. Almost half of the measured increase in CEO compensation (44.5%) accrued to a "base case" CEO, who was leading a non-teaching hospital system or independent hospital with fewer than 100 beds that earned 0 profits and provided no charity care. Another 28.5% of the measured salary increase resulted from changes in the generosity with which observable metrics were rewarded, particularly the reward for heading a system with 500 or more beds. The remaining 27% resulted mostly from hospital systems or single hospitals that increased their profits or bed size over time. The increase in CEO compensation associated with leading larger healthcare systems and earning greater profits may explain the increase in healthcare system consolidation which has occurred over the last several years.