Cafeteria Discounts Change: Becoming 10% as of April 1

The Why:

As healthcare in the United States continues to experience significant changes and challenges including declining reimbursement and increasing costs, CHI has initiated financial turnaround initiatives across the country to create a sustainable ministry.  At CHI St. Vincent, we too are working to create a sustainable ministry in Arkansas that generates the resources required to make CHI St. Vincent a great place to work, practice medicine, and deliver excellent compassionate care. 

Over the past two years, we have invested more than $14 million in our coworkers by increasing wages for clinical and non-clinical staff and making certain equity and market adjustments. This represents the most significant investment in the history of CHI St. Vincent.  We’ve also made significant changes in our HR function and have made investments to ensure that our recruitment, development and retention efforts are sustainable long-term. We will continue to invest in our coworkers in terms of salaries, wages, and benefits, yet it is essential to find ways to reduce costs in other discretionary areas.

One key initiative across all CHI markets is focused on the operation of our cafeterias. The cafeteria prides itself on offering high quality meals at competitive prices and we regularly check our prices against local dining options to remain competitive. However, our current pricing and discount programs are financially unsustainable.

Effective April 1, all facilities are making changes to coworker cafeteria discounts. Specifically, we will be offering coworker discounts of 10%. We will also eliminate free meals for Gold Card holders. It is important to note that CHI St. Vincent is currently the only market within CHI that offers a Gold Card program.

In order to attempt to positively offset these changes, our nutrition services team will have daily menu items: “Healthy Value Options” which are both healthy and reasonably priced—$4.50-$5.50 with discount. 

These are difficult decisions and we understand that these changes will be disappointing.  However, we want to be transparent and want to communicate the “Why.”  It is imperative that we implement these changes  to make course corrections to our financial performance, enabling us to further invest in salary increases, so that we may continue to recruit and retain the team we need in order to continue our mission in our communities.

A message from Chad Aduddell, Market CEO