Intermountain Interview

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Courtney Tanner spoke with Intermountain Healthcare CEO Marc Harrison on
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 about pay cuts at the company. Below is a transcription of that interview, lightly
edited for clarity.

Tanner: You talked about this 85%, that no staff member essentially will have a cut that will be below 85%
of their salary. Talk to me a little bit about that. That’s still a cut, right? That’s 15%.

Harrison: There’s no personal animus here at all. My concern is about our caregivers. They have a lot to
worry about in life right now. Life is really uncertain. I just don’t want them to worry about things they don’t
need to worry about. There’s been a lot, a lot of effort put into making sure they can remain economically
stable. This 85% thing is complicated, and I’ve had to work hard to understand it. Would it be OK if, just to
make sure that we really understand each other, that I take my time and walk through what this looks
like?

Tanner: Sure, of course.

Harrison: Right now, we’re talking specifically about doctors and advanced practice clinicians, OK, who
are employees at Intermountain Healthcare. And there are about 2,600 of those people. And we really
value them along with lots of other people. Of those 2,600 people, about 800 of them have contracts that
have well-defined clauses in them that reward them for the more work they do, in essence, the more
money they make. OK? The other 1,800 people they’re on more like a salary. So no matter if some days
are slow, some days are busy, they get this essentially the same amount at the end of the year regardless
of whether it’s slow or busy. So right now we’re talking about 800 out of the 2,600. And of those, 600
people have experienced really dramatic decreases in their practice volumes for all kinds of reasons. You
know, people are scared to go to the hospital. I think for good public health reasons, we made decisions
to stop elective surgeries.

We've been worried that the clauses in their contract — again this is about 600 of the 2,600 now we’re
talking about — would be triggered and they would suffer disproportionate economic harm. And so this is
not something new that was decided. This is part of the contracts that they sign, you know, on a regular
basis.

And so when that came up, I asked Dr. Mark Briesacher, who’s the chief physician executive, to work with
the medical group board that's chaired by a woman named Karyn Springer — she's a family doctor from
down in Provo — and her board members to come up with a plan so that we could make sure people
didn't get hurt. And so there have been two executive committee meetings of the medical group board
and lots of informal meetings. There have been 120 small group meetings between physician and APP
leadership and their people. And so those folks actually came to the executive leadership team with a
proposal.

And that proposal would be to not allow the contract that already existed to be triggered to its fullest
extent and to limit any losses to any more than 85% of their base salaries that exist right now. And we
approved that policy. And actually the feedback from the doctors has been really positive. Now, out of all
these folks, out of hundreds of people, is every single person happy? Probably not. Because that is a lot
of different opinions, a lot of different personalities. But there have been some that are really good and
thankful for those back. These folks know that if we had wanted to play hardball — and that didn't even
enter the picture at all — they could be in a much worse shape than they already would be.

By the way, no cut has occurred. Zero. Not a single person in Intermountain Healthcare has actually
suffered any economic disadvantage today, secondary to COVID-19. Nobody's pay has been cut. In fact,
next week all the eligible caregivers — with one exception that I’ll go into a second — will get their full
increase for the work they did in 2019. We thought it was really, really important to recognize their hard
work and commitment. And so they'll be getting their raises next week in their paycheck. The exception to
that actually is the executive leadership team. And we voluntarily said we won't take our raises at this
point in time because, you know in sort of that leader eats last thing sort of thing, we wanted to make sure
that before we would do anything like that that our people are OK. There are two more mitigators that I
hope will have people do yet better than the 85% of the 600 of the 2,600.

Tanner: Sorry, is it 600 or 800?

Harrison: There are 800 people who have these kinds of contracts. About 200 of them seem to be doing
just fine. And about 600 of them, we’re worried about them. We’re really worried about them. And the two
other mitigators are: We're working really hard to spool up telehealth so that they can stay busy in that
way and maybe they know their risk goes down. And the other thing that we're offering and many people
are interested in is: Would they like to be redeployed in areas like maybe a primary care doctor could
work in an Instacare or maybe an Instacare doctor could work in an ED or maybe an ED doctor could
work in an ICU. So we hope that, our goal is that people will have meaningful work to do and for us to be
able to reward them as much as possible.

So I'm sorry that that was long. I apologize.

Tanner: That’s OK. Most of that is included in the story that we ran, but that’s helpful.

Harrison: Look, again, it's super complicated. I think what people read is Intermountain cuts and
nobody's been cut yet and we’re trying so hard not.

Tanner: Yes, I put that in there and it says nothing will happen until June. I want to be fully transparent
with you.

Harrison: OK. Fair enough. I’m only worried about our people.

Tanner: I totally get that. I really do.

Harrison: OK. So what else would you like to know? And I'll try my best. I'm not an expert in every field in
the company.

Tanner: You’re fine. Some people have been asking me — obviously as we’ve talked about, this effects
physicians and APPs — some people have been asking and I know you mentioned that the executive
team won’t be taking a pay raise. But would cuts possibly effect the executive team at all?

Harrison: We're leaving all options open. And as the situation evolves, we're open to evolving as well.
And, just so you know, one of the things that made me feel good as a leader is I asked the team to get
together and talk about this topic and I didn't even need to say anything. These are really good people
who want to do the right thing.

Tanner: And I want to mention this, not in a way to be defensive, but just to tell you. I've gotten a lot of e-
mails since the story ran from people saying, ‘Yes, I was really worried about this. Thanks for doing it.
That’s exactly what these documents that we have say. And like it says in the article, we did review the
documents.

I think there were some questions about my reporting, and you raised that in your Facebook video. But
I've got a lot of people saying, you know, ‘We're really glad that you reported on this because this is
terrible.’ And so I get where you're coming from. But I hope that you know that my reporting is based on
facts and real folks that reached out to me. So I did want to just kind of put that out there.
Harrison: Thank you.

Tanner: I'm going to kind of summarize this to make sure that I'm understanding right. The issue with the
article isn’t that it was an accurate but that maybe you guys would have liked to see some information
higher up. Am I making sense? Is that a good summary?

Harrison: I said this in the Facebook live piece. I think an entirely accurate and reassuring headline
message would have been: ‘Intermountain blunting potential economic consequences for its doctors and
APPs. That’s totally accurate. And it just would’ve make people feel differently.

Tanner: Our job isn’t necessarily to reassure or to not reassure. I think we’re kind of a middle of the
ground. Here’s the information. And we’re going to put it as clearly and as plainly as we can.

Harrison: I value Utah journalism. Your paper sitting on our kitchen counter right now. I value being part
of this community. And I’m a big fan of journalism in general.

I think there's an abundance of caution that I'm trying to take right now. And, in addition to the safety of
our caregivers and the great medical care of our communities, I'm also trying to, you know — we're the
largest private employer in the state — and I'm working so hard to keep people in a place where they can
pay their rent or buy food and keeping people in a place where they have confidence in our community
and our health care systems where it's justified. OK? It's really important because this is going to get ugly.
We need to pull together — not apart. We need to come together.

So anyhow, I'd love to share with you a couple of the things we're doing for our non non-physician APP
caregivers, if you're interested.

Tanner: Sure. Yeah. Just quick now, I mean, I know that you are working hard to get people where they
can pay their rent and everything. I'm not questioning that. But I mean, some of the APPs that I talked to,
said ‘This cut is going to kill me. I can’t take care of my kids.’ So I just want to point that out. But yes, I
would love to hear some of the other things you guys are doing.

Daron Cowley, Intermountain CEO: Maybe we ought to spend a little more time on that, the 85% thing,
because it is somewhat complicated. As you mentioned, a lot of these people were going to have their
compensation drop potentially in half based on their contracts.

Harrison: Yeah, I'm not a expert in the contracts themselves, but I know that many of them could have
gone as low as, I know for sure, as 75%. And we've added another 10% on top of that. And I'm not
minimizing the potential impact of a 15 percent pay cut at all.

I would also say that those people were getting a lot of notes from people. You know, everybody gets
different kind of notes. Right? And some of mine have four-letter words in then, but a lot of them are really
nice. But a lot of the notes were saying, ‘Hey, thank you for the opportunity to redeploy.’ So maybe that
APP who is not as busy, he or she could say, ‘I’d love to go work in the emergency department for a
while.’ And if they wish to do that, they may end up 100% whole. So I am assisting in the best. You know,
on on that front in general, the redeployment piece is really important. You know, in the interest of keeping
people in a place where they can pay their rent and can buy food, we've now had 4,000 shifts that have
been redeployed across Intermountain. Yesterday alone, 400 people got redeployed to different areas of
work.

So let's say you're an endoscopy technician, a sophisticated job, and you go and you act as a greeter at
the front door of the hospital, which is normally done by volunteers. You'll still get paid like the endoscopy
technician. So no one's getting, there's no adjustment to pay for redeployments. And we've had people
who are in tears because they're so grateful for the opportunity to do that..
Tanner: Sorry. I just want to make sure i’m understanding. So if you are redeployed to a position that
would make less than your position, then you would still make what your normal position makes.

Harrison: Of course, of course. And that's actually a really important point, right? That'll help people
continue to be able to not have major impacts on their life, which is the intent.

Tanner: Can you talk about, is Intermountain as a whole losing money right now? Do you know how
much? Can you quantify that at all? Are you worried?

Harrison: So I guarantee you that we're losing money. I had a really good conversation with our CFO the
other day. We don't know how much yet work. We're trying to figure that out. But, you know, one of the
things that is Intermountain has always tried to do is we’ve tried to be extremely careful with how we
spend money and try to be fiscally strong. And that's not because we're a bank. It's not because we're a
hedge fund. It's for day just like today. You know, it's for a day like today where, you know, our people are
feeling enormous stresses, our communities, you know, are feeling stresses. And we can take care of
them. And that's what the money's there for you. We can rebuild financial reserves.

Tanner: So is this using rainy day funds as necessary?

Harrison: That's what the investments are there for. It's not for any number on a piece of paper. It's there
to help people.

Tanner: I am not a financial wizard. But would it be possible to use those rainy day funds so that no one
would even see a 15% pay cut?

Harrison: You know, it’s a balance that I need to thread. So great safety and quality, ongoing clinical
operations. You know, to think that when this is over, that it is quote ‘over’ would be naive on my part. You
know, with the spike in unemployment, we certainly will be seeing more charity care. And as you know,
Intermountain has always taken care of people without regard for their ability to pay. And we're going to
have to do a lot of that.

Tanner: So no plans to furlough or to lay off any workers at Intermountain either?

Harrison: We have no plans to that effect. But we will be very, very careful about adding people,
obviously, as I'm sure every business is. You know, I don't know about you, but we have at least a couple
of examples of people who were close that are already getting hit economically. You know, there’s a
young man who lives in our building, who is worried about making rent right now. He’s going to help keep
the building up. You know, I mentioned somebody in my Facebook live, somebody who's really dear to
me, who's out of work.

Tanner: In Idaho, right?

Harrison: Yeah. And he's such a talented guy. He's going to be good. He's very resourceful. But this is
just incredibly real, you know? And so we're trying to thread that needle. Is 85% the exact right number? I
don't. We're giving it a good try.

Tanner: I should mention, too, there were concerns about people having to use PTO when maybe they
didn’t want to. Can you talk about that? And people losing time and a half?

Harrison: Yeah, may I speak to that please?

Tanner: Yeah.

Harrison: So I think that there's actually two issues here that I think are getting mixed up. So nobody is
losing time and a half because of COVID-19. That said, in November, December, we discovered — not
like a forensic way — that it came to my attention that across the system there were really heterogeneous
overtime practices and there were people who were getting sent home for lack of work and losing hours.
At the same time, people were getting paid a premium pay in overtime. And, you know, we felt like it was
our obligation to try and get people the hours that they had signed on for. And, as you might imagine, as
that work began, the people who weren't getting enough hours who were starting to get them were pretty
happy. And some of the people who were getting the overtime were sad that they didn't get it. And I
suspect that that is the issue that you’re hearing about there.

Tanner: Yeah, I think so. That aligns with the documents that I have.

Harrison: And I think we're a wonderful organization. I think we've got a big heart. This is a very
complicated business. And one always finds things that they need to work on. Does that make sense?

Tanner: Yeah, absolutely.

Harrison: The second part of your question was?

Tanner: The PTO.

Harrison: Right. So one of the things we've done for our non-physician APP caregivers is everybody has
been given access to four weeks of administrative time. So if you lose a shift and you can't be redeployed
or you don't want to be redeployed, it’s 80 hours or whatever full time for four weeks minus that. So
everybody gets a cushion to avoid having to use their PTO around this. OK? Beyond that, if they go into
their PTO, we've also added an opportunity for them to go negative.

What I’ll tell you is that we don’t know if there will be subsequent decisions around salaries. I've never
seen something evolve as rapidly as this. Can I swear to you that nothing beyond that is ever going to
change? That would be very disingenuous. I would never do that.

But I hope that giving everyone a month’s worth of time shows our sincere desire to keep people working
and keep getting their salaries.

Tanner: I think that answers my questions. Were there other parts of anything that you wanted to talk
about?

Harrison: Just a couple of little things. We were really worried about working parents. And the human
resources folks have come up with some really novel options for child care, including having plenty of
slots in our child care centers right now. And parents who would normally drop their kids off are actually
opening their slots so that people who are frontline caregivers can use them. Very generous. And we
have added these additional opportunities beyond that. So we're trying not to make that a limitation.

Something that I really am proud of is, I don’t know about you, but I really hate when food goes to waste.
Like I really hate it. And so we’ve now got four or five places where we’re doing the food pantries. Some
of our biggest hospitals now have food pantries in place where caregivers can stop and get a bag of
produce for five bucks on the way home so they don’t have to go to the grocery store, with whatever risk
there is associated with that. It's affordable; the food is clean and good. And, you know, we really try to
pay attention to these things we call social determinants of health and connectedness and financial health
goes into that and also eating good food does, too. And we think $5 is a price point that the vast majority
of people really can afford. So that feels good, as well.

And maybe the thing that I'd like to emphasize the most is that how good people have been, generous,
innovative, thoughtful, coming with solutions, not complaints — by and large. They want to serve. Of
course, they want their families to be stable. We’re addressing that the best way we can. I just I can't tell
you how great the community is. I'm thrilled with how state government is leading. And I'm really proud of
the collaboration I'm seeing among other health care business leaders.

This is going to be really harsh. I won't sugarcoat that at all. But I think we're going to come out of this
maybe even better as a community than we went into it.

Tanner: I hope that was well.

Harrison: OK. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Tanner: I think that probably covers it. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about this.

Harrison: Yes, it's my pleasure. What did I miss? Is there anything else I should say?

Cowley: No, I think I think you've covered it well. And if you have any any fact-checking, you need to do,
feel free to send it to me and we’ll get right on that and get back to you.

Tanner: That sounds good. Thank you both for your time. I appreciate it.

Harrison: Have a nice day. Thank you.

Tanner: You, too. Bye.