James A. Haley VA paid big bonuses in tight 2009 budget

Haley VA paid big bonuses in tight 2009 budget

By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, August 6, 2011

About 87,000 patients get treatment at Haley, ranked 9th among VA facilities nationally. Haley boasts what may be the premier polytrauma unit in the nation, where the most severely wounded veterans are treated.

TAMPA — One of the nation's busiest veteran hospitals found itself in a money crunch in 2009.

Leaders at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center worked frantically to find funds to offset a deficit that, at one point, was projected at more than $25 million, financial records show.

Travel costs were curtailed. Overtime scrutinized. Potential hires prioritized.

But amid the cuts, one budget item nearly tripled:

Employee bonuses.

Haley paid its 175 business office employees $553,000 in fiscal 2009 bonuses, up from $196,000 the year before, according to Haley and budget records. Bonuses largely went up, Haley officials say, because of a new hospital program that rewarded workers who exceeded goals collecting money owed by insurers and veterans.

Collections went up 14 percent that year to $82 million compared to 2008. Bonuses shot up 181 percent. As bonuses climbed, so, too, did billing refunds.

Refunds of veteran co-pays climbed from $426,525 in fiscal 2007 to $1.5 million in 2010, Haley confirmed.

Haley officials describe the refunds as routine for any Department of Veterans Affairs hospital and said they do not point to flawed billing.

Some say the VA needs to be more forthcoming about bonuses in trying financial times.

Haley's 2009 bonuses "stand out like a search beacon in the desert," said Paul Sullivan, a veterans advocate who is the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense in Washington, D.C.
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Haley VA paid big bonuses in tight 2009 budget