Will hospital executives see their salaries rolled back?

The Ontario government is seeking to establish rules around pay-for-performance bonuses paid to hospital executives, but the Ontario Hospital Association is cautioning that a uniform formula for arriving at such bonuses is unworkable.

Executive salaries in Ontario’s hospitals “tend to be higher than in other provinces, where governments have taken ‘a more active role’ in setting compensation levels,” the Hay Group’s Moshe Greengarten told the Globe and Mail. The compensation consultant also said Ontario’s compensation levels are well below those of hospitals in the United States.

The government wants to ensure pay-for-performance is based on factors such as reducing infection rates and reducing wait times for ER patients and others high priority procedures, such as hip and knee replacements.

Tom Closson, president of the OHA, told the newspaper that he fears the province could impose uniform performance standards that would not be equally appropriate to the settings. As an example, he said rural hospitals don’t have issues with emergency wait times, while larger hospitals have responsibilities to foster research and train doctors.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said on Friday “we don’t call it public service for nothing. They (health care executives) need to feel a sense of mission, a sense of cause.” McGuinty said the government could go beyond freezing executive salaries, suggesting there could be rollbacks of some of the top earners.

Top earner among active hospital CEOs is the University Health Network’s Robert Bell, who earned $830,000 last year, including bonus and taxable benefits. Closson said there were individual doctors who earned more than Bell, however, doctor salaries are not published. Specialized surgeons can earn as much as $1 million per year.