Currently, nonprofit Hospice of Dayton, including its business Hospice of Butler & Warren Counties, employs 632 full- and part-time workers, she said.
“We did have to eliminate a few positions last week and do some adjustments in our staffing,” Wagner said. “This is something not at all a direct result of the Hospice of Miami County partnership.”
“We’ve tried to get there through that attrition, but we just weren’t able to do it,” she said.
On Aug. 14, Hospice of Dayton and Hospice of Miami County announced a strategic partnership. The pairing creates the largest hospice in the Miami Valley.
Rather, the job cuts are prompted by dropping patient counts, Wagner said. In past years, Hospice of Dayton and Butler & Warren Counties hired more staff due in response to a growing number of patients.
The average daily census of patients in 2011 was 659, up 6.8 percent from the year before, Vicky Forrest, Hospice of Dayton spokeswoman, said. The average daily census in 2012 grew 10.2 percent to 726. So far in 2013, the average census is tracking at 669 patients, down 5 percent from 2012, Forrest said.
Administrative positions were cut, Wagner said. And not all retirements and resignations can go unfilled. For example, Hospice of Dayton is hiring for Registered Nurses.
“Our model’s changing a little bit in how we’re serving patients,” Wagner said. The share of patients seen in extended care facilities is declining while the share of patients seen in their residential or private homes is increasing.
“Patients are being referred to us much later than they have in the past,” she said.
Hospice of Dayton was also affected this year by sequestration — federal automatic budget cuts — that resulted in a 2 percent cut in the reimbursement rate for hospice care from Medicare, she said.
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