Crain’s Detroit Business published a list of the 25 highest-paid hospital executives in Michigan, and all received compensation in seven figures, based on data from 2022.
Philip Incarnati of McLaren Health Care topped the list at $10,783,705 a year, a 9 percent increase in 2022, which happened at the tail end of the COVID-19 restrictions as Incarnati opened the doors of a new $600 million facility.
John Fox, the former CEO and president of Beaumont Health, came in a close second at $10.2 million. Fox’s compensation was related to his retirement package in 2022. Beaumont merged with Spectrum Health, the largest hospital system in Grand Rapids.
Rounding out the top five are Wright Lassiter III, the former CEO and president at Henry Ford Health, at $6 million; Mike Slubowski, director, president, and CEO of Trinity Health Corp., at $5.3 million; and Tina Freese Decker, CEO and president of Corewell Health, the new name for the Beaumont-Spectrum merger, who was paid $4.5 million in 2022.
Number 25 on the list is David Mazurkiewicz, who received $1,989,988. Mazurkiewicz is the EVP and CFO at McLaren Health Care in Grand Blanc, Michigan, population 7,925.
Sore Spot
Hospital CEO salaries, especially at nonprofit organizations, have drawn increased attention as surprise medical bills and unpaid insurance claims escalate (see articles on pages 13, 18).
Reining in those salaries is on a list compiled by investigative journalist Alex Berenson of what he says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should do if he wants to succeed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“Limit compensation of executives at non-profit hospitals and chains, by, for example, saying that no non-profit executive can receive more than $1 million annually in total compensation as a condition of Medicare participation. (Make it $2 million if you must.),” wrote Berenson on his Unreported Truths news site on November 20.
‘Paid Like a Rock Star’
Hospitals have become huge operations over the years, with revenues comparable to any large company, and executives work hard to limit workers’ pay, says Devon Herrick, a health care economist and editor of the Goodman Institute Health Blog.
“Hospital care is a labor-intensive business,” said Herrick. “Salaries and wages make up about 60 percent of hospital expenses. As a result, hospitals work hard to hold the line on labor costs. In addition, two-thirds of hospitals are nonprofit organizations with a charitable mission.”
Multimillion-dollar pay packages for nonprofit hospital executives deserve more scrutiny, says Herrick.
“It is dispiriting when hospital staff are told to work for less because their employer is a nonprofit, only to discover the CEO is paid like a rock star,” said Herrick. “It is also disheartening for patients struggling with high medical bills to find out the hospital executives are paid salaries that often run into the millions of dollars a year.
“It’s almost like the more ways a hospital CEO figures out how to price-gouge employer plans and insurers, the better they’re paid,” said Herrick.
AnneMarie Schieber ([email protected]) is the managing editor of Health Care News.
AnneMarie Schieber is a research fellow at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Health Care News, Heartland’s monthly newspaper for health care reform.
