I am a physician at UPMC. I treat indigent patients and paying patients, regardless of what insurance they have. I, and many physicians like myself at UPMC, find it morally reprehensible that a tax-exempt institution, whose growth and prosperity has been partly attributable to tax breaks, can deny the community (even paying patients) access to health care.Shame on the leadership of UPMC.
Dr. K – UPMC Physician
Author Archives: Make It Our UPMC
Have you been denied care at UPMC?
UPMC is refusing to renew its longtime contract with Highmark—the region’s largest insurer—that expires at the end of the year. That means more than three million of us could lose access to the hospitals our tax dollars, charitable donations, and insurance premiums have helped build.
Already Denied Care? Share Your Story Here
I know first hand what it feels like to be constantly worried about UPMC cutting of access to my doctors. My husband and I both have severe medical conditions that need constant treatment. We are deeply concerned about having to switch doctors in the middle of our care.
Now UPMC is sending letters to even more patients letting them know that in a few months they too will lose access to affordable in-network access to their doctors they know and trust.
UPMC executives are using patients as pawns and gambling with our health to build a healthcare monopoly in our city. The time has come for all of us to raise our voices and tell UPMC to stop bullying patients with scary ad campaigns. UPMC needs to put patients over profits.
Tell us how this is affecting you.
Have you been turned away from your doctor or received a letter from UPMC letting you know that you are about to be locked out from affordable access? Add your voice to the growing number of patients who are speaking out against UPMC’s behavior. Share Your Story Here
Together we can Make It Our UPMC
Angela Vennare-Klein
Patient
Pittsburgh Unites for Change at UPMC
“I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that we have from people from all over Pittsburgh, and I am very hopeful the mayor’s initiative will help bring us closer to improving jobs and forming our union at UPMC. Our families, our patients, our city needs better jobs at UPMC now.” – Lou Berry
This week our fight to hold UPMC accountable to its employees and the city of Pittsburgh blew out the roof!
If you weren’t with the thousands of people who came downtown, I’m pretty sure you saw us. Our voices were impossible to miss.
It started last week when my co-worker Christoria Hughes and Pittsburgh faith leaders were arrested after trying to talk to CEO Jeff Romoff about using UPMC’s power and wealth to lift UPMC workers out of poverty.
UPMC’s refusal to hear our call has just made us more determined. We need UPMC to do better and we won’t quit. That’s why we brave the bitter cold to gather at UPMC headquarters and set up our health care village. We had so many villagers that we spilled right into Grant Street!
In our village, my co-workers and I joined Pittsburgh students and teachers, artists and nurses, union members, City Council members, State Representatives, clergy and choirs to show UPMC what respect and care look like.
Hip hop artist Jasiri X got the formula just right when he gave us a song composed especially for us. It’s not hard: Just put People Over Profits!
On Tuesday, we again stepped out into the bitter cold to renew our call for good jobs, access to healthcare, and for UPMC to pay its fair share. At about 9 o’clock, Mayor Bill Peduto’s Chief of Staff, Kevin Acklin, came to our demonstration to tell us that we had been heard! The Mayor rushed back to town to step in and help resolve our conflicts with UPMC.
I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that we have from people from all over Pittsburgh, and I am very hopeful the Mayor will help bring us closer to improving jobs and forming our union at UPMC. Our families, our patients, our city needs better jobs at UPMC now.
Thank you,
Lou Berry
Housekeeper
UPMC Montefiore
UPMC Outsourced Transcriptionists Face ANOTHER Challenge
“I was a UPMC transcriptionist for more than 20 years until UPMC outsourced transcriptionists like me to a low-wage contractor in June.” Cindy Cromie
I am Cindy Cromie and I was a UPMC transcriptionist for more than 20 years until UPMC outsourced transcriptionists like me to a low-wage contractor in June.
I couldn’t believe it. Without a moment’s notice, UPMC was letting us go. Our work was good, and the need was still there. In fact, they wanted us to continue working for UPMC – just through a contractor. The difference: our paychecks cut in half, at best; our healthcare benefits eliminated.
Like others in the transcription department, I took the job with Nuance, the contractor — we were given 10 days to decide to take it or leave it and told we couldn’t get unemployment insurance.
From one paycheck to the next, my income in a two-week pay period as an hourly transcriptionist went from $1,012 to $330 – a 67 percent decrease – with Nuance’s pay-by-line system. In fact, Nuance had to adjust my pay to bring it up to minimum wage.
Who can afford to live on that? At 57, I had to move in with my mother, back to my childhood home. I had to cancel my son’s health insurance. And I’m dipping into my retirement savings just to cover my bills.
I filed for and was granted unemployment benefits, but now, four months down the road, I am facing further indignity by Nuance. The company that UPMC outsourced me and other transcriptionists to is appealing my unemployment claim.
All of us former UPMC transcriptionists are hardworking people. We did good work helping to keep patients safe and we earned enough to support our families.
UPMC decided to push me and my co-workers out of the ranks of the middle class and into the ranks of the working poor. Thousands of other workers at UPMC are struggling to get by on UPMC’s poverty jobs. We don’t think that’s charitable behavior.
Together, we need to tell UPMC that they cost us all. We need to remind the community what happens when a business chooses profits over people.
That’s why we’re all coming together to demand UPMC help build and strengthen our middle class instead of holding our families and economy back.
Join Us: Good Jobs, Healthy Pittsburgh Day of Action
March 3 at the US Steel Tower, Downtown Pittsburgh
Inside UPMC – Mary Hughes
The work we do matters, and we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We need UPMC to work with us, and to create good jobs and help us make a stronger, healthier Pittsburgh.
My Name is Mary Hughes, and I am a UPMC employee. My coworkers and I are calling on UPMC to create good jobs for a strong and healthy Pittsburgh. Will you join us and sign our online petition?
I have worked as a medical transcriptionist in the imaging department for the past 8 years. People sometimes think that transcriptionists just copy out what the doctors say, and ask “where’s the skill in that?” But the truth is we have to know a LOT about medicine to get he notes right. Every day we catch the little human errors that doctors make, and it’s our job to call them up and ask if we should make a correction. That’s the role we play in keeping patients safe and healthy.
I am very proud of the work I do. But my work is not all of me. I am not an expendable person who can be worked until the end of their life without any life for themselves. Nobody is expendable and it is wrong when employers treat people as if they are.
My mother was widowed at 43 and didn’t have a fancy education, so she went to work as a housekeeper. She cleaned healthcare facilities for 20 years. She tried to teach me the advice her father gave her: “If all you’re doing is sweeping the floor, be the best floor sweeper they’ve got.”
It’s good advice, but it’s not enough. My mother is old now, worn out, frail and sick. Her time is almost gone. When I hear her coughing in her bed at night, trying to clear the fluid her weakened heart can no longer cope with, I wish her life had something in it other than hard work. I wish she had enjoyed some of the richness that the people she worked for enjoyed. I wish she had not been used up to the point that she could no longer give.
At UPMC, the people around me are getting used up. They work hard – too hard – since everybody puts in overtime to make their paychecks bigger. And even with all that, many rely on foodbanks and other forms of assistance to feed themselves and their families. It feels as if nobody is making enough to live, let alone to start to see work pay off.
And at UPMC, even workers who make a good living can’t count on it. This year hundreds of skilled UPMC transcriptionists were plunged into poverty when UPMC sold them to Nuance, a company that pays so little for a line of transcription that it had to supplement one of my former colleague’s paycheck to reach minimum. Many of these workers had served UPMC for 20 and 30 years. They are still transcribing for UPMC hospitals, but their lives have been devastated.
Here’s the worst thing: even as people work themselves sick, or fall into medical debt with their very employer, or fear sudden financial ruin, UPMC makes it very clear that to speak out or try to get make changes is not tolerated. UPMC’s workplaces are places of fear.
UPMC is using all of its wealth and power to silence workers who are trying to make their lives better. To know for sure that their kids won’t go hungry at some time during the month. To be able to get the care they need in the hospital that they clean.
The work we do matters, and we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We need UPMC to work with us, and to create good jobs and help us make a stronger, healthier Pittsburgh.
Mary Hughes
UPMC Medical Transcriptionist
Good Jobs. Healthy Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh needs UPMC – the city’s largest employer, healthcare provider and landowner – to use its power and wealth to create a better future for our city. That’s why we’re all coming together to demand UPMC help build and strengthen our middle class instead of holding our families and economy back.
Join Us: Good Jobs, Healthy Pittsburgh Day of Action
MONDAY, MARCH 3
ALL DAY
USX Tower – 600 Grant St
Downtown Pittsburgh
Take Action:
Add your voice today – Sign our petition and call on UPMC to create good jobs for a healthy Pittsburgh!
Spread The Word:
Download our event flyer – Click Here
Get Involved:
Want to get involved with the action on March 3rd? Attend one of the trainings below to learn how.
General Orientation/Training for the Days of Change
Location: Smithfield Church
Time: 11AM March 1st.
What: General Information on the days of change. What to expect. Where to go and what to bring and do While you’re there. Come one and all.
Production Day
Location: TBA
Time: February 27th 10AM
What: A day of action will require lots of signs, banners, and other items for the day. Handy with a marker? Like to draw posters? This is the perfect way to help us build up our event on March 3rd!
Chaney & Lucretia are fighting for their family — & better jobs at UPMC.
My name is Chaney Lewis. I have two young children and my partner Lucretia and I both work at UPMC.
Lucretia and I want to provide a good life for our kids. We want to show them that when you work hard and you do a good job, it pays off.
But no matter how many hours we put in, a job at UPMC just isn’t enough to show them that hard work pays. The bills keep piling up, and we have been forced to cut corners on our health just to stay afloat.
I have worked at Presbyterian hospital for the past nine years, and I recently completed a two-week specialized training to transport heart patients who are on heart monitors. It’s intense making sure patients and equipment are getting from place to place quickly and safely.
Even with my experience and extra training I still only make $11.97 an hour. For four out of the nine years I have been at UPMC, I worked through a wage freeze at $9.76 per hour, a starting wage only $1 more than what my mother made there 20 years ago when she was a UPMC housekeeper.
Our boys are the center of our world, but even covering childcare for them is a constant stress. Right now, Lucretia’s 87-year-old great grandmother is helping take care of them while I’m at work. Then I piece together other side jobs that give us some flexibility.
When my car broke down unexpectedly, we had to ask Lucretia’s great grandmother to take the bus to watch the kids. I felt awful.
Working full time at UPMC, my take-home would just be enough to cover daycare for the kids. It’s like we’re in a hamster wheel – working just to have the kids taken care of, but without anything to show for it.
Even though I’m at the hospital every day, I avoid going to the doctor. Health insurance is one thing that we’ve decided to risk going without.
This makes things tough at home. It means a lot of sacrifice.
We shouldn’t have to work multiple jobs to afford to feed our families, but that is the reality thousands of my coworkers live because of the poverty wages UPMC pays us.
I feel like the American dream is slipping away from where you only need one job, go on vacation, buy a car, spend time with family and not have to work overtime.
I believe that an employer that can pay its top executives millions and millions has the ability to start making our needs a priority. We need good jobs at UPMC.
That’s why we’re fighting the fight: UPMC can do better by Pittsburgh by working with us to create good jobs. Good jobs that we can raise our families on, jobs that allow us to move up into the middle class. Jobs that allow us to live the American dream.
Even though I’m at the hospital every day, I avoid going to the doctor. Health insurance is one thing that we’ve decided to risk going without.
This makes things tough at home. It means a lot of sacrifice.
We shouldn’t have to work multiple jobs to afford to feed our families, but that is the reality thousands of my coworkers live because of the poverty wages UPMC pays us.
I feel like the American dream is slipping away from where you only need one job, go on vacation, buy a car, spend time with family and not have to work overtime.
I believe that an employer that can pay its top executives millions and millions has the ability to start making our needs a priority. We need good jobs at UPMC.
That’s why we’re fighting the fight: UPMC can do better by Pittsburgh by working with us to create good jobs. Good jobs that we can raise our families on, jobs that allow us to move up into the middle class. Jobs that allow us to live the American dream.
We need UPMC to do better by all of us.
Join Us!
For a City Council Hearing on UPMC
Wednesday, February 26th, 2:30 PM
5th Floor City County Building, Downtown Pittsburgh
BREAKING: Faith Leaders and UPMC Employee Arrested While Calling for Living Wages
UPMC Worker Christoria Hughes, Rev. Rodney Lyde, and Rev. Dr. Ronald Wanless were arrested at UPMC headquarters this afternoon while calling on UPMC to pay all of its employees a living wage.
This afternoon, UPMC executives showed their disregard for the plight of employees who keep the healthcare system running smoothly every day. I was part of a delegation of faith leaders and workers asking to meet with decision-makers, to secure UPMC’s commitment to lifting workers out of poverty.
We didn’t have that meeting. Instead, we were arrested.
It’s time for management to respond to the needs of its workers. Please join us tomorrow to amplify our call for living wages at 8 am at the US Steel Tower.
I was arrested with Christoria Hughes, a proud mother and grandmother who has worked at UPMC for six years. When Christoria moved to Pittsburgh, she hoped a job with the city’s largest employer would mean economic security for her family. But even with full time hours, she only brings home about $350 a week and relies on public subsidies and food banks to make ends meet.
I accompanied Christoria into the UPMC headquarters today because her concerns and those of her coworkers have gone unanswered. UPMC workers’ efforts to come together to make change have been met with harassment and retaliation now being prosecuted by the federal Labor Board.
We are calling on UPMC to do three simple things to lift up all workers and improve our city:
- Pay every health care worker no less than $15.00 an hour. Workers who work full-time need family-sustaining jobs that don’t require public assistance, and our community needs a strong and healthy middle class.
- Erase the medical debt of UPMC employees. People who work for the region’s largest health care provider should not struggle with medical bills.
- Allow workers to form their union without interference. Respect all UPMC employees’ right to organize for a voice at work by ensuring a fair process to form a union free of management harassment, intimidation and attempts to influence workers’ choice.
I believe that UPMC should meet employees who wish to rise with open arms and in a spirit of collaboration. I’m proud to stand with Christoria and with all of the UPMC workers who are standing strong in this fight for better wages for their families and for a healthier, stronger city for all of us.
It is time to shift UPMC’s priorities from corporate jests and executive compensation to the needs of working families.
Join us on Friday at 8 am at the US Steel Tower to tell executives that Pittsburgh is ready for change.
Right now, sign this petition to show your support – and send it to your friends.
Thank you for your support,
Rev. Dr. Ronald Wanless
Good Jobs, Healthy Pittsburgh – Christoria Hughes
Christoria Hughes
Dietary, UPMC Presbyterian
My name is Christoria Hughes, and I am a proud mother and grandmother. I am also a longtime UPMC employee writing to ask you to join me and my coworkers in calling for better jobs for a strong and a healthy Pittsburgh.
My dream has always been for my grandkids to be able to go to college and get ahead in life. I was so proud when my oldest granddaughter was accepted into college here in Pittsburgh.
I was willing to do anything so she could succeed. So when she started to struggle financially and was thinking about dropping out, I packed up my younger grandkids and moved from North Carolina to Pittsburgh to help. We hadn’t even seen the place!
Pittsburgh is supposed to be one of the most livable cities in the country. Livable to me means not having to worry every day about how to avoid economic disaster. Livable to me means being in a situation where the hard work that you do goes to building something that you want and care about. For me, I want to build a better life for my family. That is what my hard work is for.
When I got here I applied right away at UPMC. They were the largest employer, and it’s easy to see that they are kind of the economic king around here. So I thought that is the company to get in with. I was hopeful that I would have job security and be able to keep a nice home for our family.
But after six years at UPMC, and working full-time, I’m still only bringing home about $350/week.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that’s not enough for me to raise these kids. We have to pull together and sacrifice on everything, from sharing clothes, to using subsidizing housing and food banks. We also rely on real charities like Big Brother and Big Sister for help. The same is true for many of my coworkers.
All the UPMC workers try to get as much overtime as possible, and the extra hours do mean more income. But the extra hours also produce a lot of strain, and it’s not healthy for families. Kids looking after themselves too young, no one taking an interest and helping out with homework, that’s when kids get into trouble. We need to get to a place where people who work full time doing a job that needs doing can pay the bills and take care of their family responsibilities.
I’ve devoted my life to my grandkids. I’ve worked hard at it. And I don’t mind it. But I’m not doing well enough. And my grandkids aren’t doing well enough. And that’s just not because we’re not trying hard enough. I want our kids and grandkids to do better. I want the people I work with to do better. I want Pittsburgh to do better. To make that happen, UPMC is going to have to do better by all of us.
Will you join me and my co-workers and sign onto the petition to call on UPMC to create good jobs for a strong and healthy Pittsburgh?
Christoria Hughes
Dietary, UPMC Presbyterian
State Legislation Will Protect Care
I manage two separate conditions that result in chronic pain. After a long and thorough search to find the best doctor to help me manage my chronic pain, I finally found an orthopedic surgeon at UPMC.
With excitement and hope about finally finding some relief, I called to make an appointment with my new doctor. I never made it to that first appointment, or even had a chance to meet with the doctor of my choice.
Why? Because UPMC didn’t like my insurance – Highmark’s Community Blue. I even offered to pay cash out of pocket to see him, but was not allowed all because I had the wrong insurance card.
No one should be turned away from healthcare because of their insurance carrier.
That’s why new legislation introduced by Representatives Christiana and Frankel introduced is so important. Coming together across party-lines, Reps. Frankel and Christiana are working to make sure that what happened to me stops happening in Pennsylvania.
HB1621 and 1622 will make sure that all large healthcare systems must accept all insurance cards and that hospitals like UPMC can no longer deny someone access to their doctors and treatment simply for having the wrong color insurance card.
The ability to choose a doctor for ourselves is essential in receiving the best quality care. My care – and the care of thousands of others just like me – should never be put into jeopardy by UPMC’s efforts to increase market share and profit margins.
I am a patient. I should not be treated like a pawn in business maneuvers.
Thank you to Representatives Christiana and Frankel for taking a stand for all of us.
Donna Goodwin