Ascension controversies creep back into spotlight after cyberattack
Ascension , now facing a nationwide cyberattack , is no stranger to controversy. In recent years, the health care system, one of the largest in the U.S., has been embroiled in allegations that it operates under a "profits over patients" model.
In 2018, the company came under fire after it stopped performing tubal ligations and vasectomies, which increased the costs and risks for women giving birth in Ascension hospitals .
In 2022, the New York Times published its multi-part investigation showing that Ascension significantly cut nurse and aide jobs just before the COVID-19 pandemic spread in the spring of 2020. The result was boosted profits, diminished patient care and low morale during a time when hospital staff were already struggling.
Here's a look at the controversies that have hit Ascension over the years.
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Ascension's pension lawsuit
In 2016, a lawsuit was filed against Ascension claiming that the health system and subsidiary Wheaton Franciscan Services violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which is a federal law that sets the minimum standards for retirement and health plans in private industry.
The lawsuit claimed that Ascension treated its retirement plan like a "church plan," meaning it was exempt from ERISA. The suit resulted in a class-action settlement, and an agreement was drawn on Sept. 1, 2017. Ascension ultimately paid $29.5 million to settle.
Ascension stops tubal ligations and vasectomies
Ascension came under fire again in 2018 when its hospitals stopped performing tubal ligations and vasectomies. The move was part of a larger trend involving the rapid consolidation of hospitals nationwide and an uptick in Catholic-sponsored or Catholic-affiliated hospitals between 2001 and 2016.
Ascension, the largest non-profit Catholic health system in the country, stopped tubal ligations and vasectomies because of its belief that birth control is immoral. The study, which examined inpatient data from Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, California, New York and Washington, found that the annual rate of abortions and tubal ligations at hospitals acquired by Catholic health systems had decreased by nearly a third.
Foregoing tubal ligation can increase the cost and risk for women giving birth who may also want permanent birth control afterward because it requires the person to schedule a follow-up surgery instead of having the option of having the procedure done immediately following a Caesarean section birth.
In 2021, the ACLU of Michigan filed complaints against Ascension regarding these practices after a Michigan woman was denied a tubal ligation, even though her life would be at risk if she were to get pregnant again.
Private equity investments
Ascension's private equity investments have also been heavily scrutinized, especially after Stat News reported that it was operating a billion-dollar private equity fund.
In its investigative report, Stat News found that the St. Louis-based health care system used its wealth to create a "sophisticated investment strategy," which included a partnership with a private equity firm called TowerBrook Capital Partners.
The report sparked nationwide interest and prompted U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Ge Bai, an accounting and health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University, to issue statements questioning how Ascension's for-profit investment activities aligned with its duty to provide charitable benefits to the communities it serves.
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Record pay for executives
Ascension CEOs have also been criticized for being the highest-paid nonprofit CEOs in the U.S. for years. Ascension Health CEOs Anthony Tersigni and Joseph Impicciche had salaries in excess of $10 million per year throughout the 2010s. As of 2022, Impicciche's salary was still among the highest 10 in the nation.
COVID-19 staff shortages and profits
The New York Times published a multi-part investigation into how Ascension responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, often prioritizing profits over patients. The report, published in December 2022, alleged that the company had significantly cut nurse and aide jobs prior to COVID-19, at a time when hospitals were already dealing with nurses leaving the field.
"As recently as 2019, Ascension was trumpeting its success at reducing its number of employees per occupied bed, a common industry staffing metric. At one point, executives boasted to their peers about how they had slashed $500 million from the chain's labor costs," the New York Times reported. "During surges in the coronavirus, Ascension repeatedly reduced its capacity by more than 500 beds nationwide because it did not have enough workers."
The nurses that remained were often working 16-hour shifts, while some hospital aides were replaced entirely by robotics.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Ascension cyberattack just the latest in slew of recent controversies
