Scandal-plagued Phoenix VA hospital given $10 million in bonuses to administrators

[Papageorgio]

I would love to find out when the feds began the bonus system for any agency.

As all of you, I think the simple idea of such is just atrocious. Think of how much more public employees are truly making, when you begin to add in these bonuses vs. the private sector. And we, the tax payer are paying it.

It encourages bad, even crimimal behavior depending on the objectives to obtain it. How can those that did this at the VA eveen live with themselves?

And not to mention that a Gubmint worker makes TWICE than the same position in the PRIVATE SECTOR...HOW do they justify that crap?

Do you think a VA Doctor makes twice what he would make in private practice?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/us/doctor-shortages-cited-in-va-hospital-waits.html?_r=0

Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, a primary care physician, took a job at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Jackson, Miss., in 2008 expecting fulfilling work and a lighter patient load than she had had in private practice.

What she found was quite different: 13-hour workdays fueled by large patient loads that kept growing as colleagues quit and were not replaced

At the heart of the falsified data in Phoenix, and possibly many other veterans hospitals, is an acute shortage of doctors, particularly primary care ones, to handle a patient population swelled both by aging veterans from the Vietnam War and younger ones who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to congressional officials, Veterans Affairs doctors and medical industry experts.

This has nothing to do with fraud and cooking the books.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

 

[Sallow]

I would love to find out when the feds began the bonus system for any agency.

As all of you, I think the simple idea of such is just atrocious. Think of how much more public employees are truly making, when you begin to add in these bonuses vs. the private sector. And we, the tax payer are paying it.

It encourages bad, even crimimal behavior depending on the objectives to obtain it. How can those that did this at the VA eveen live with themselves?

And not to mention that a Gubmint worker makes TWICE than the same position in the PRIVATE SECTOR...HOW do they justify that crap?

No they don't.

Private sector always makes more.

The "incentive" to work for the government is job security and benefits.

 

[Sallow]

And not to mention that a Gubmint worker makes TWICE than the same position in the PRIVATE SECTOR...HOW do they justify that crap?

Do you think a VA Doctor makes twice what he would make in private practice?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/us/doctor-shortages-cited-in-va-hospital-waits.html?_r=0

Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, a primary care physician, took a job at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Jackson, Miss., in 2008 expecting fulfilling work and a lighter patient load than she had had in private practice.

What she found was quite different: 13-hour workdays fueled by large patient loads that kept growing as colleagues quit and were not replaced

At the heart of the falsified data in Phoenix, and possibly many other veterans hospitals, is an acute shortage of doctors, particularly primary care ones, to handle a patient population swelled both by aging veterans from the Vietnam War and younger ones who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to congressional officials, Veterans Affairs doctors and medical industry experts.

This has nothing to do with fraud and cooking the books.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

Sure it does.

At some time managers get tired of being told, "No, we can't increase your budget, do more with less." And do more with less.

They cook the books.

 

[Sallow]

I would love to find out when the feds began the bonus system for any agency.

As all of you, I think the simple idea of such is just atrocious. Think of how much more public employees are truly making, when you begin to add in these bonuses vs. the private sector. And we, the tax payer are paying it.

It encourages bad, even crimimal behavior depending on the objectives to obtain it. How can those that did this at the VA eveen live with themselves?

I thought conservatives liked pay for performance. Don't want a bunch of public employees getting paid the same regardless of how hard they work.
The bonus pool is typically 5% of the total payroll and the best performers typically get the larger bonus

Why do you want to punish a doctor who saved someone's life or a nurse who comforts some veterans because four or five administrators cooked the books?

You got things a wee bit messed up, if a private company wants to hand out bogus bonuses, that is completely up to them, it's their company and they answer to stockholders. This is tax money, it wasn't earned, it is fraud, no one was punished because the bonuses would never have been paid.

Wait what?

Doctors and nurses earn their pay whether they are working in the private sector or the public sector.

 

[rightwinger]

I would love to find out when the feds began the bonus system for any agency.

As all of you, I think the simple idea of such is just atrocious. Think of how much more public employees are truly making, when you begin to add in these bonuses vs. the private sector. And we, the tax payer are paying it.

It encourages bad, even crimimal behavior depending on the objectives to obtain it. How can those that did this at the VA eveen live with themselves?

I thought conservatives liked pay for performance. Don't want a bunch of public employees getting paid the same regardless of how hard they work.
The bonus pool is typically 5% of the total payroll and the best performers typically get the larger bonus

Why do you want to punish a doctor who saved someone's life or a nurse who comforts some veterans because four or five administrators cooked the books?

You got things a wee bit messed up, if a private company wants to hand out bogus bonuses, that is completely up to them, it's their company and they answer to stockholders. This is tax money, it wasn't earned, it is fraud, no one was punished because the bonuses would never have been paid.

Of course it is earned.

Government employees receive salaries just like everyone else and bonuses are part of their total compensation. In the case of the government, they allocate 5% of the payroll to be distributed in bonuses

I think that hard working doctors and nurses in VA hospitals should not be denied bonuses because some administrator cooked the books

 

[Plasmaball]

Hey remember that time that the wall stereotypes firms took our bail money and thwe right was up in arms over it? Nope...me either...

That being said...no bonuses should be handed out because of what happened. .but I'm not going to go nuts because these are government peoples..

 

[Sallow]

Typically 5% of your payroll is budgeted for performance bonuses. $3 million a year for 650 employees seems within that range

The problem with that hospital was that they had more patients than they could handle with their allotted staff. Why should an overworked staff be punished?

Here's the problem with that.

Administrators are not there to do an easy job. They are there to do a hard job.

They do the provisioning and make sure that what they are managing has ample supplies and people to do the job.

And while yeah..people above them might have been doing the "synergy" thing, ultimately it's up to them to sound the alarm when things go wrong.

For whatever reason, they didn't do that. Some of it understandable, some of it not.

But accepting bonus? That's beyond the pale.

 

[rightwinger]

Typically 5% of your payroll is budgeted for performance bonuses. $3 million a year for 650 employees seems within that range

The problem with that hospital was that they had more patients than they could handle with their allotted staff. Why should an overworked staff be punished?

Here's the problem with that.

Administrators are not there to do an easy job. They are there to do a hard job.

They do the provisioning and make sure that what they are managing has ample supplies and people to do the job.

And while yeah..people above them might have been doing the "synergy" thing, ultimately it's up to them to sound the alarm when things go wrong.

For whatever reason, they didn't do that. Some of it understandable, some of it not.

But accepting bonus? That's beyond the pale.

The $10 million over three years was not paid out to just those administrators who cooked the books. It was paid out to "nearly 650 employees each of those years. The employees included doctors, nurses, administrators, secretaries and cleaning staff."

 

[The T]

Typically 5% of your payroll is budgeted for performance bonuses. $3 million a year for 650 employees seems within that range

The problem with that hospital was that they had more patients than they could handle with their allotted staff. Why should an overworked staff be punished?

Oh yeah they were so overworked they had to leave 1,700 vets off their waiting lists.
Give me a break.

This was fraud for bonuses and promotions. And it's more than in this one hospital.

Don't pretty it up or make excuses. Cooking the books is fraud. ETA: If they needed more staff they could have hired them. The money was there for bonuses but NOT for the vets.

Oh and another thing. The VA has been carrying over surpluses for the past 5 years. The money was there.

Fraud indeed...and THEFT.

 

[Papageorgio]

I thought conservatives liked pay for performance. Don't want a bunch of public employees getting paid the same regardless of how hard they work.
The bonus pool is typically 5% of the total payroll and the best performers typically get the larger bonus

Why do you want to punish a doctor who saved someone's life or a nurse who comforts some veterans because four or five administrators cooked the books?

You got things a wee bit messed up, if a private company wants to hand out bogus bonuses, that is completely up to them, it's their company and they answer to stockholders. This is tax money, it wasn't earned, it is fraud, no one was punished because the bonuses would never have been paid.

Of course it is earned.

Government employees receive salaries just like everyone else and bonuses are part of their total compensation. In the case of the government, they allocate 5% of the payroll to be distributed in bonuses

I think that hard working doctors and nurses in VA hospitals should not be denied bonuses because some administrator cooked the books

Bonuses are paid by earning them, I get bonuses, I get them because of performance, not just because. If the staff did not earn them, they should not get them.


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

 

[Rozman]

Looks like another phony scandal for the Obama administration.
Seems to happen to him alot doesn't it?

 

[Rozman]

Why waste money on the Vets when it can be given
out as a bonus.

 

[I.P.Freely]

Why waste money on the Vets when it can be given
out as a bonus.

it seems that America has a long history of treating Vets like shite
The VA's troubled history - CNN.com