Boston hospital CEO asks: Do I get paid too much?

Paul Levy writes a blog, "Running a Hospital," about his life as CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His posts frequently bounce around the medical blogosphere, but never with the response he saw for his Jan. 28 musing: "Do I get paid too much?"

Levy's post was in response to an August 2006 Boston Globe story that detailed salaries and benefits for CEOs at Boston-area nonprofit hospitals. Filings showed Levy received salary, bonuses and benefits worth $1 million. Fitting, he said, considering the "billion-dollar-a-year enterprise" he oversees, which includes $200 million in research programs and $800 million in clinical revenues.

But Levy did acknowledge that others might think his pay extravagant.

"So, if you were on my board, how would you set an appropriate salary?" Levy wrote. "You might look at the competition, and as the Globe notes, the salaries for most of the Boston-area hospital CEOs center around the same level. Would you look at salaries of people in for-profit companies, and, if so, how do you measure comparable size and complexity? Would you look at salaries of other types of nonprofits, like universities and museums?

"Does it matter that the average tenure of a hospital CEO is under six years? If that is roughly the tenure of a major league baseball player, should CEO salaries be in the same ballpark? Sorry, I couldn't resist! ...

"This is serious business that affects both the perception of hospitals in the public eye and also the ability of hospitals to attract the talent they need to run a complicated organization that is vital to the community," Levy posted. "What do you think?"

Levy's blog received 23 responses, and his post was linked by several other blogs. Many respondents wrote that he deserves the salary, saying it takes talent to run a hospital and that he was doing a good job, while others questioned if the hospital fairly compensates all workers.

AMNews spoke with Levy by phone about the exchange.

What led to your question?

From time to time the issue of executive salaries and their impact on heath care costs comes up, and I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to get people's thoughts? I thought the answers were magnificent.

What did you expect?

Wasn't sure. If you asked me before, I would have expected more negative comments. There were an interesting number of supportive comments. Maybe if they saw the link to the Globe story they saw what other people in Boston were being paid.

Did the answers surprise you?

No, those answers represented the whole range of people's opinions. There's some people who worry about the differential between highest and lowest paid in the organization, others were worried about "how does he spend his money." Others said you want to attract the best people and this is how.

You write a blog in hopes of stimulating comments, and this one did.

What else were you hoping to accomplish?

To educate readers as to how these decisions are made.

How does the hospital board feel about the blog?

People like it around here, because I'm telling interesting things about the hospital and they [board members and employees] are attached to and proud of the place, and they like to think we are in the business of being honest to the public and transparent in what we do.

How did the board feel about you telling your salary?

It's been in the public before. And people know me. They are not surprised I would do this sort of thing.

What do you think of your pay?

It's self-evident. If I disagreed with the board's judgment I wouldn't stay in the job, or I would have turned down some pay, and I haven't done either. I trust their judgment and they are my employers.

You last created a buzz when you went off the "crackberry." [He wrote that his BlackBerry was intrusive and he stopped using it.] How's that going?

It's great. I love it. I didn't renew the service. I still have the device, but I can only use it to hammer nails.

I use my computer [to communicate.] Now I don't have to do it contemporaneous when the message comes in.

I survived before it and I'll survive now.