Augusta, Georgia Area: Wage Index
In my last post, I looked at how many beds each hospital had in service and how many Inpatients were admitted. Today, I want to look at how many people are employed by these hospitals and what the average pay is.
How many employees?
The hospitals report the number of FTEs (full-time equivalents) on their cost reports. These are the people that are on the payroll. Don’t think doctors when you see these figures because there probably aren’t a lot of them on the payroll. Most have their own practices. There could be doctors on the payroll, but they may be on a separate general ledger from the hospital to make certain governmental reporting easier and cleaner.
| Hospital | FTEs |
|---|---|
| University Health Services | 2,661.60 |
| AU Medical Center | 3,912.38 |
| Doctors Hospital of Augusta | 1,127.81 |
| Aiken Regional Medical Center | 1,027.67 |
| Washington County Regional Medical Center | 252.58 |
| Emanuel Medical Center | 306.57 |
| Burke Medical Center | 112.60 |
| Jefferson Hospital | 125.53 |
| McDuffie Regional Medical Center | 129.23 |
This is almost 10,000 jobs. Well, in total these hospitals definitely employ more than 10,000 people. Some jobs are part-time or as-needed. Also, doctors are not included in these figures.
In the smaller hospitals, the numbers may not be that significant, but to these communities, it is most definitely significant. And for those who hold these jobs, it’s really significant.
Interns & Residents
If you are from Augusta, you know AU Medical, or MCG (Medical College of Georgia) for those who have been around any length of time, is a medical school. Let’s see how many of those students are training here in Augusta. We can’t know for sure what medical school they are from, but it would seem logical that most would be from MCG.
| Hospital | Interns & Residents FTEs |
|---|---|
| University Health Services | 6.66 |
| AU Medical Center | 498.45 |
| Doctors Hospital of Augusta | 13.91 |
| Aiken Regional Medical Center | 4.85 |
Those are some really healthy figures there. Five hundred doctors is much higher than what I was thinking. That’s a positive sign. Hopefully, the medical schools across the country can keep up with the demand for doctors.
Average Hourly Wage
When we talk about jobs, we want to know what they pay. These are averages, though, so you cannot see what a certain employee makes. But let’s see how they compare between the hospitals.
We’ll start with the overhead departments. Think accounting, HR, pharmacy, and medical records. These departments don’t interact directly with the patient.
| Hospital | Avg Hourly Wage |
|---|---|
| University Health Services | 29.02 |
| AU Medical Center | 30.20 |
| Doctors Hospital of Augusta | 33.06 |
| Aiken Regional Medical Center | 28.13 |
| Washington County Regional Medical Center | 12.59 |
| Emanuel Medical Center | 16.41 |
| Burke Medical Center | 22.53 |
| Jefferson Hospital | 16.96 |
| McDuffie Regional Medical Center | 11.50 |
At the larger hospitals, they are likely to have high-pay corporate payroll numbers rolling into the overhead figures. Whereas, at the smaller hospitals, the CFO’s and CEO’s are likely to receive a lower pay and be asked to wear multiple hats. This would be the case for most companies. Larger companies have more revenue which would potentially lead to higher salaries and would allow one to specialize in a specific task.
Now for the rest of the hospital; the ones working directly in patient care, such as nurses and respiratory therapists. These are people “touching” the patient.
| Hospital | Avg Hourly Wage |
|---|---|
| University Health Services | 41.67 |
| AU Medical Center | 37.12 |
| Doctors Hospital of Augusta | 40.72 |
| Aiken Regional Medical Center | 38.79 |
| Washington County Regional Medical Center | 24.11 |
| Emanuel Medical Center | 26.13 |
| Burke Medical Center | 28.68 |
| Jefferson Hospital | 26.89 |
| McDuffie Regional Medical Center | 23.66 |
The larger hospitals offer more specialized services that would pay more, which would impact the patient care hourly wage. The disparity in wages seems logical to me.
Wages are not the only consideration for a job. Commutes are huge consideration and being close to family may be important. It is interesting to see the hourly averages though. I do wonder how closely related wages are with cost-of-living. That’s another topic to ponder.
Musing Revelation
These hospitals provide jobs that are critical to the economies in all of the markets they are in. Providing 100 jobs in a small town is a massive economic benefit. I’m pleasantly surprised by the number of jobs they offer.
It’s great to see so many doctors training in Augusta. Hopefully, they stick around and continue to enrich this community with more healthcare options.
Money. It’s all about the money. Thirty dollars an hour on average is nothing to sneeze at. I plan to look at the average salary data per the latest census. I’ll compare to what the hospitals are paying and I suspect it’ll be in line with the cost of living.
This covers a good portion of Worksheet S-3, Part II on the Medicare Cost Report. All of this data is subject to change at any given time for any number of reasons. My only goal is to look through what is reported to learn more about these hospitals. Hopefully, somewhere along the line you will learn something too.