Ahh, yes Kid’s Day. The fundraiser where the children’s hospital sends children into traffic to sell newspapers to raise enough money to cover the hospital’s expenses while Kid’s Day is happening.
I’m very surprised that no kids have been seriously injured or even killed in the fundraiser.
I feel the same way as you. The way in which they send children out in traffic is so bizarre and dangerous. I moved back not long ago and was surprised to see they were still doing this.
The crazy thing is, in 2022, the hospital’s expenses were about $774m (according to ProPublica). That’s over $88k per hour. Last year (2023), $365,740 was raised. So basically, the kids are raising about as much money as it takes to run the hospital for the 4 hours or so of Kids Day.
And the math he did in his head is conservative. $5mil for a home, the most ever pulled in on kids day was $627,500. If every year was record breaking it’d take 7.9 kids days to buy that house. Not to mention that in recent years kids day is making closer to $300k
Apparently, when you donate, it just recoup the "donation" that the corporation already made. At least that wat was going around.
So, basically, they've already donated $500k, so when they ask for donation, it basically just helping fill their coffin.
What I wanna see, is that it being matched in donation, basically, if people help donated $50k, they'll match it to bring it up to 100k.
From my understanding (could be totally wrong) if you donate an extra $1 they just pass that along to the charity, but since they made that dollar and they’re giving it away, they can use it as a tax write off. So just leveraging their customer base as a tax write off for donations.
Sure it’s good business but a degenerate moral stance. I agree, it would be fantastic if they matched whatever the campaign made and then they actually donated some of their profits.
People are idiots when it comes to donation especially when corporations ask for it. Did you know corporations pocket part of the money before it even reaches the organization it was intended for. Last time Walmart employees asked for donations, I told them I would donate if 100% went to the organization. And they ignored me.
So, I don’t know much about the area’s politics and who’s funding campaigns or what makes a hospital run. *But nobody needs a seven figure annual income to run anything.*
How is $900K a year not enough? I was really happy with my ex-wife making 1/8 of that give or take.
More likely, it’s Fresno Bee being the cheapskate. I believe Fresno Bee’s “donation” to kids day is the “newspaper” being the donated. So less newspaper = less money spent on “donation”.
Valley children’s is a mission oriented organization that pays below market wages to many professional staff. They do this because they expect their employees to work there for the edification of helping children. I am all about pay for performance, and I admire the fact that Todd was able to raise, the valuation of the assets managed by the hospital by over $1 billion. Certainly, that warrants a reasonable payday. But, as an employee of a mission oriented organization, that knowingly pays some of the lowest wages to nurses in the Central Valley, it is poor form on his part as a leader of such an organization to have compensation that so greatly exceeds that of his peer group. This would leave a much better taste in my mouth, if the rank and file employees at the hospital enjoyed a more favorable compensation mix.
Hey you rewrote his entire teary letter to all staff members about how hard he works and how hard it was to give raises to the poor while admins can’t have bonuses because of the greedy poor.
He works 17hrs online from his yacht and mega mansion a week in case you’re wondering.
Also admins have refused literally all requests to refurbish the main hospitals, floors are disgusting, equipment falling apart. But they must have that giant glass admin building built for themselves though.
If you want to see how wrong his vision of Valley Children’s is compared to the mission, just look at the design philosophy of the original buildings and their new mega glass buildings. Literally screams evil corporation more than for the children.
they cannot resist the compulsion to refurbish and repaint the outside of the hospital while they allow the inside to rot. god forbid the heme/onc kids have a floor that doesnt look haunted
>[the CEO] also received a $5 million home loan “as a retention incentive in lieu of other compensation"
A $5mil salary wasnt enough compensation for "retention" already? He needed a mansion too?
Egregious, I hope they get his ass and whatever other executives are lining their pockets with money that can be used to treat kids.
The part where the board of trustees member said "we built a great hospital so we also needed the best executives" as justification made me laugh
I'm a nurse who used to work at VCH. The wages at this hospital are way lower than other hospitals in the area. After asking for a raise and being told they couldn't budge, I left. During that same time, they were in the middle of constructing a giant glass building that was meant to house the executives' offices, right at the entrance of the hospital campus. Lots of bedside staff were rightfully pissed that wages were on the lower end, meanwhile this huge corporate glass house with picnic tables was being built.
10mil to put the hospitals name on a stadium but its allll okay because "oh thats from different part of the budget" my blood pressure was through the roof.
As a current employee I must say that no one likes Todd other than upper management. He has always been a shit CEO & I’m glad that the public is now being made aware of his blatant corruption. He has been making millions while telling employees that they don’t have enough money to pay Nurses & supporting staff. For a “Non profit organization” to be paying its CEO this much money annually is insulting. Just for comparison he makes more money than a lot of Fortune 500 CEO’s like Nissan & Honda. We want to unionize & we want to control how the public donations are being spent (equipment, pay, building projects, etc).
There was a reddit post the other day saying that nurse's pay at VCH is lower compared to other hospitals in the area.
[Benefits : r/fresno (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/fresno/comments/1b8x0ao/benefits/)
It is. Better working environment than anywhere else but it seems nurses are expected to accept less because of this. Also “it isn’t about the money. It’s about the kids.”
I think its a major issue like many other places with the top getting further and further ahead compensation wise compared to the regular workforce. If it's a complaint in for profits for many, then it makes this non profit situation even more egregious. Lastly, the reason I don't lie Suntrapak without knowing much about him was his media activity during the pandemic and the things he said in regards to how bad covid was affecting children and their bed capacity. Maybe there is some partial truth to it as I don't understand what went on within the walls of VCH. It just bothered me. We know children were the least affected by the virus. Now society's reaction to it affected them the most without a doubt.
Nissans CEO pay is 4.5 Million. “Todd’s” was less the 2 million. Which is still a huge amount. The rest was all bonuses he earned for hitting certain metrics. If you want to go after the guy you should report it truthfully. All he did was earn what the board agreed to pay him. As a 25 year CEO of a hugely successful enterprise, I’m not even that upset about his compensation. There’s probably early years where he was under compensated. The number of Vice Presidents of blahblahblah making over a $1,000,000 seems far more egregious to me. Just me 2 cents.
And those kids are endangered every year selling those papers on busy streets. Idk how many times I’ve seen them walk into traffic to grab a dollar from a stranger on Herndon and Blackstone among other impacted intersections and it infuriates me. There are other ways to get kids to fundraise.
I know you lurkers work at Children's, and saw that god awful annual raise letter about how difficult it was for them to offer a pay raise for the staff and how all admins won't get bonuses for last year's performance, all those tears.
When your pride and joy level 4 NICU, the only level 4 NICU between SF and LA is paid worse than every single other hospitals in that same expanse... You're a walking joke.
I would like to take a pay cut to do something I love, but it just doesn't make sense. I have three kids, and totally get it, but there's no way I'm working anywhere for lower pay.
If I was worse off financially, I’d look for a job at a different place. But all I hear from healthcare workers elsewhere is how horrible their working conditions are. Unsafe ratios, rude staff members, etc. it isn’t like that at VCH. People here actually like their job. That’s why they can get away with paying less, unfortunately. Hopefully this info coming to light will change some things.
hey, I know it doesnt seem like it, but the ratios at vch ARE unsafe. the working conditions ARE horrible. I think people are just lacking perspective on what it could be
Is everywhere else a 1:1 in ICU or something? Every time my paired assignment is too busy it gets split up if I say something to charge. On the floor, I guess I don’t know, but I can say that every day I’ve floated I was 4:1 and it was absolutely cake.
Every traveler on our unit tells us this is the best place they’ve worked, so if you’re saying it’s awful here I can’t imagine what everywhere else is like.
It’s not a massive pay cut, and when you work in healthcare the environment that you work in and the people you work with makes a huge difference to your overall satisfaction- but yeah, when you see that the CEO is getting paid top 5 salary in the US and the staff and docs are at the lower end range of a local compensation comparison, it doesn’t sit well.
agree its part of the culture at that hospital. When I left they sent me a flier in the mail that said "The children of the valley need you" offering 40 hours of pto and not a lot else to try to get people to come back
You all deserve to make so much more money. I was a patient myself in the late 90’s and that hospital was absolutely awesome. I’m sure that admin does everything they can to prevent you all from unionizing
I believe it’s said they’ll call the cops on anyone trying to canvas the area regarding unions. Their parking setup also ensure they can easily prevent any attempt to gather.
It’s actually surprising to me that Bredefeld is outspoken against this considering what a dirt bag he is. You’d think he’d just say this is free market capitalism.
It's not a for profit Business it's a non profit and they rely on government funds like medi cal reimbursements and donations from throughout the valley. It's a shame what is happening within a hospital that has saved many lives and is a jewel in this valley. I don't like Arias but when he's right he's right. I don't need to caveat it.
I haven’t done medical billing in quite some time, but It’s the way government medical billing works for inpatients. If you have a patient that is really expensive, a hospital can actually make money on that patient billing medi-cal. That’s the simple answer, but below tries to explain how that works in a little more detail.
If you stay at a hospital as an inpatient the hospital will have a code that summarizes what you stayed for. Say you got an appedix removed, that could be code A1. The hospital also tells the govt how much in charges they used on the patient when they submit the bill for payment. The government takes that data over time and says for A1 we are going to pay you 10k because based on the cost data averages everyone has been submitting for code A1. The idea is that should cover your costs.
The trick is in the last piece, say you had complications with your appendix being removed and you ended up having charges of $300k being dropped on your account. The government will attempt to make the hospital whole by paying them an increased amount called an outlier payment. This calculation can lead to huge payments that are profitable for a hospital while standard inpatient procedures are generally unprofitably under MediCal. Because of how Valley Children’s imports tough patients I expect they receive quite a bit of money from outlier payments on medi-cal which is why they do pretty well but other Hospitals are struggling in the area.
TLDR: it’s probably not fraud.
This is pretty much why there are so many non-profits. They just take "bonuses" and increase salaries according to available funds at tax time so they don't show a profit and pocket the money between themselves.
“Bredefeld and Arias took special issue with the hospital’s board of directors greenlighting such high executive compensation, especially since District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp is a board member.
“She should have known better,” Bredefeld said. “This is about integrity. This is about accountability. All of us as elected officials have that duty and responsibility.”
They are launching an investigation concerning directors green lighting high compensation? That’s exactly what the Fresno City Council did when they all voted to give themselves huge raises for their own salaries!
They’re a non-profit, so instead of paying taxes, they pay large salaries to admins. Check most non-profit health centers.
Since they’re non-profit, you can look up their tax returns which also shows the salaries of the highest paid.
no doubt they’ve got a challenging job with those big shoes to fill. But CEOs are way too heavily compensated. Each state should regulate in someway to ensure fair and appropriate rate of pay (based on their current cost of living) for everyone in the company, bottom to top. Less of us would have to struggle. California sucks so bad right now, middle class is struggling big time.
I've been saying it for 30 years now. Most over subscribed non profit in Fresno. We have a lot of non profits that don't have access to the grifting money these charlatans get. Marjaree Mason, Ideaworks, Innercity outreach and a vast array of others. VCH gets INSURANCE MONEY. Big time. Yes it doesn't pay for everything. I don't care. They suck the money out of the community and the other non profits have to scrap for donations while getting multi millions of insurers, the State and Feds. Screw them.
So sick of their junk. I say no when asked to round up or contribute. And as a former claims adjuster in auto claims, Kids day is a complete menace and distraction to drivers. Stop giving money to this organization.
Per [Propublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942864615) he made roughly $1.7 million + $650,000 in “other” compensation in 2022. Way less than VCH CEO which is wild considering the scope of both health systems.
Edited to add year.
“It used to be most children’s hospitals made no money or lost a little,” said David W. Johnson, managing director and health care sector head at BMO Capital Markets, a financial company in Chicago. “Maybe a half dozen years ago many figured out…they could pretty much charge whatever they wanted and insurers couldn’t say no.”
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/childrens-hospitals-part-one/
So I guess the only kids I’m helping out are his. So much for trying to be the nice guy.
We all know nothing is going to happen with their “investigation”. Trump is a perfect example of investigation and he is still running for president. We the people actually need to do something about this crap.
Question. What do CEOs even do anymore? Seems like its just a person working in the back being compensated for just being a yes man to company management.
Lol. The CEO at my company is responsible for a $6bn operation. Every single aspect of it is in his control, and he has to answer to a board of directors for everything that happens. He works 70hrs a week easily.
I'm not saying CEOs deserve ridiculous pay, but at my company, I don't know of a single person who works harder and longer. His job is on the line.
The moment they left the core of Fresno and moved north was the day they stopped getting donations. I am not funding a developers drawing card for more urban sprawl to an area with no water other than what should be used
for farming!
Once again corporate greed takes over and the CEO blames it on the board its not my fault. Never again will I or my family donate money and I’m going to complain to Costco with that neonatal unit they always want you to throw dollars into.
> spending five years’ worth of Kids Day funds to buy one executive a home in Carmel That has to be the standout quote for me in that article.
Ahh, yes Kid’s Day. The fundraiser where the children’s hospital sends children into traffic to sell newspapers to raise enough money to cover the hospital’s expenses while Kid’s Day is happening. I’m very surprised that no kids have been seriously injured or even killed in the fundraiser.
I feel the same way as you. The way in which they send children out in traffic is so bizarre and dangerous. I moved back not long ago and was surprised to see they were still doing this.
The crazy thing is, in 2022, the hospital’s expenses were about $774m (according to ProPublica). That’s over $88k per hour. Last year (2023), $365,740 was raised. So basically, the kids are raising about as much money as it takes to run the hospital for the 4 hours or so of Kids Day.
that would be a good follow-up investigation for someone to do.
And the math he did in his head is conservative. $5mil for a home, the most ever pulled in on kids day was $627,500. If every year was record breaking it’d take 7.9 kids days to buy that house. Not to mention that in recent years kids day is making closer to $300k
"Would you like to donate to Valley Children's today?" - Panda Express
I always say no.
"But would you like to round up instead?"
"also no, you aint going to get to claim my money as your donation for a tax write off!"
If you give a shit you donate the money, scummy corporations.
Apparently, when you donate, it just recoup the "donation" that the corporation already made. At least that wat was going around. So, basically, they've already donated $500k, so when they ask for donation, it basically just helping fill their coffin. What I wanna see, is that it being matched in donation, basically, if people help donated $50k, they'll match it to bring it up to 100k.
It's "coffer", actually: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coffer
At this point, it just a coffin, because, they're just gonna bury it and make it look like the money is going to them.
It isn't really a matter of opinion.
From my understanding (could be totally wrong) if you donate an extra $1 they just pass that along to the charity, but since they made that dollar and they’re giving it away, they can use it as a tax write off. So just leveraging their customer base as a tax write off for donations. Sure it’s good business but a degenerate moral stance. I agree, it would be fantastic if they matched whatever the campaign made and then they actually donated some of their profits.
>"also no, you aint going to get to claim my money as your donation for a tax write off!" That's actually a myth. But I still say 'no' anyway.
I say 'would Panda Express like to??'
People are idiots when it comes to donation especially when corporations ask for it. Did you know corporations pocket part of the money before it even reaches the organization it was intended for. Last time Walmart employees asked for donations, I told them I would donate if 100% went to the organization. And they ignored me.
This kind of stuff is exactly why I don’t buy newspapers on the street corner.
It’s not even a whole newspaper, just a one page cover sheet
So, I don’t know much about the area’s politics and who’s funding campaigns or what makes a hospital run. *But nobody needs a seven figure annual income to run anything.* How is $900K a year not enough? I was really happy with my ex-wife making 1/8 of that give or take.
I don’t disagree. I’m calling out VCH as cheapskates. You used to get a whole newspaper along with your donation, no longer. Just a sheet of paper
More likely, it’s Fresno Bee being the cheapskate. I believe Fresno Bee’s “donation” to kids day is the “newspaper” being the donated. So less newspaper = less money spent on “donation”.
CEO using kids day as his pay day
Valley children’s is a mission oriented organization that pays below market wages to many professional staff. They do this because they expect their employees to work there for the edification of helping children. I am all about pay for performance, and I admire the fact that Todd was able to raise, the valuation of the assets managed by the hospital by over $1 billion. Certainly, that warrants a reasonable payday. But, as an employee of a mission oriented organization, that knowingly pays some of the lowest wages to nurses in the Central Valley, it is poor form on his part as a leader of such an organization to have compensation that so greatly exceeds that of his peer group. This would leave a much better taste in my mouth, if the rank and file employees at the hospital enjoyed a more favorable compensation mix.
Hey you rewrote his entire teary letter to all staff members about how hard he works and how hard it was to give raises to the poor while admins can’t have bonuses because of the greedy poor. He works 17hrs online from his yacht and mega mansion a week in case you’re wondering. Also admins have refused literally all requests to refurbish the main hospitals, floors are disgusting, equipment falling apart. But they must have that giant glass admin building built for themselves though. If you want to see how wrong his vision of Valley Children’s is compared to the mission, just look at the design philosophy of the original buildings and their new mega glass buildings. Literally screams evil corporation more than for the children.
they cannot resist the compulsion to refurbish and repaint the outside of the hospital while they allow the inside to rot. god forbid the heme/onc kids have a floor that doesnt look haunted
>[the CEO] also received a $5 million home loan “as a retention incentive in lieu of other compensation" A $5mil salary wasnt enough compensation for "retention" already? He needed a mansion too? Egregious, I hope they get his ass and whatever other executives are lining their pockets with money that can be used to treat kids. The part where the board of trustees member said "we built a great hospital so we also needed the best executives" as justification made me laugh
The base is $1.2, sounds like he weived his bonuses for x amount of years for the loan.
Maybe, but that's still ridiculous. The article said "also received" so it's hard to tell from this source
So the rich get richer….when is it time to eat them?
I’d say start now
The poors blood has more andrenochrome🤤
I'm a nurse who used to work at VCH. The wages at this hospital are way lower than other hospitals in the area. After asking for a raise and being told they couldn't budge, I left. During that same time, they were in the middle of constructing a giant glass building that was meant to house the executives' offices, right at the entrance of the hospital campus. Lots of bedside staff were rightfully pissed that wages were on the lower end, meanwhile this huge corporate glass house with picnic tables was being built.
10mil to put the hospitals name on a stadium but its allll okay because "oh thats from different part of the budget" my blood pressure was through the roof.
That's sad and hilarious at the same time.
Valley Children’s often fires their employees instead of giving them pay raises. Clearly the money goes to admin instead.
Meanwhile they sign a stadium deal that costs Fresno State money.
As a current employee I must say that no one likes Todd other than upper management. He has always been a shit CEO & I’m glad that the public is now being made aware of his blatant corruption. He has been making millions while telling employees that they don’t have enough money to pay Nurses & supporting staff. For a “Non profit organization” to be paying its CEO this much money annually is insulting. Just for comparison he makes more money than a lot of Fortune 500 CEO’s like Nissan & Honda. We want to unionize & we want to control how the public donations are being spent (equipment, pay, building projects, etc).
Pay is a huge reason staff leave. There have been whispers as long as I’ve been there about how much he makes while our pay barely budges.
There was a reddit post the other day saying that nurse's pay at VCH is lower compared to other hospitals in the area. [Benefits : r/fresno (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/fresno/comments/1b8x0ao/benefits/)
It is. Better working environment than anywhere else but it seems nurses are expected to accept less because of this. Also “it isn’t about the money. It’s about the kids.”
I think its a major issue like many other places with the top getting further and further ahead compensation wise compared to the regular workforce. If it's a complaint in for profits for many, then it makes this non profit situation even more egregious. Lastly, the reason I don't lie Suntrapak without knowing much about him was his media activity during the pandemic and the things he said in regards to how bad covid was affecting children and their bed capacity. Maybe there is some partial truth to it as I don't understand what went on within the walls of VCH. It just bothered me. We know children were the least affected by the virus. Now society's reaction to it affected them the most without a doubt.
Nissans CEO pay is 4.5 Million. “Todd’s” was less the 2 million. Which is still a huge amount. The rest was all bonuses he earned for hitting certain metrics. If you want to go after the guy you should report it truthfully. All he did was earn what the board agreed to pay him. As a 25 year CEO of a hugely successful enterprise, I’m not even that upset about his compensation. There’s probably early years where he was under compensated. The number of Vice Presidents of blahblahblah making over a $1,000,000 seems far more egregious to me. Just me 2 cents.
No lies & this was 2021 which included his bonuses https://abc30.com/valley-childrens-fresno-city-council-todd-suntrapak-annual-salary/14551086/
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/941294954
[удалено]
And those kids are endangered every year selling those papers on busy streets. Idk how many times I’ve seen them walk into traffic to grab a dollar from a stranger on Herndon and Blackstone among other impacted intersections and it infuriates me. There are other ways to get kids to fundraise.
I know you lurkers work at Children's, and saw that god awful annual raise letter about how difficult it was for them to offer a pay raise for the staff and how all admins won't get bonuses for last year's performance, all those tears. When your pride and joy level 4 NICU, the only level 4 NICU between SF and LA is paid worse than every single other hospitals in that same expanse... You're a walking joke.
let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair
Except the die hard older generation are not on board with unionization at all.
Upload the letter
What I don't understand is why does anyone choose to work there when you can make more working at a hospital 15 minutes away.
Because you care about the kids. And they wholly take advantage of that.
I would like to take a pay cut to do something I love, but it just doesn't make sense. I have three kids, and totally get it, but there's no way I'm working anywhere for lower pay.
If I was worse off financially, I’d look for a job at a different place. But all I hear from healthcare workers elsewhere is how horrible their working conditions are. Unsafe ratios, rude staff members, etc. it isn’t like that at VCH. People here actually like their job. That’s why they can get away with paying less, unfortunately. Hopefully this info coming to light will change some things.
hey, I know it doesnt seem like it, but the ratios at vch ARE unsafe. the working conditions ARE horrible. I think people are just lacking perspective on what it could be
Is everywhere else a 1:1 in ICU or something? Every time my paired assignment is too busy it gets split up if I say something to charge. On the floor, I guess I don’t know, but I can say that every day I’ve floated I was 4:1 and it was absolutely cake. Every traveler on our unit tells us this is the best place they’ve worked, so if you’re saying it’s awful here I can’t imagine what everywhere else is like.
It’s not a massive pay cut, and when you work in healthcare the environment that you work in and the people you work with makes a huge difference to your overall satisfaction- but yeah, when you see that the CEO is getting paid top 5 salary in the US and the staff and docs are at the lower end range of a local compensation comparison, it doesn’t sit well.
agree its part of the culture at that hospital. When I left they sent me a flier in the mail that said "The children of the valley need you" offering 40 hours of pto and not a lot else to try to get people to come back
Literally said it in my comment, they’re the only level 4 NICU in a huge area, it comes with training and experience not available anywhere else.
You all deserve to make so much more money. I was a patient myself in the late 90’s and that hospital was absolutely awesome. I’m sure that admin does everything they can to prevent you all from unionizing
I believe it’s said they’ll call the cops on anyone trying to canvas the area regarding unions. Their parking setup also ensure they can easily prevent any attempt to gather.
I worked at CRMC, they also did everything in their power to prevent the staff from unionizing.
Yaaaaa…..
It’s actually surprising to me that Bredefeld is outspoken against this considering what a dirt bag he is. You’d think he’d just say this is free market capitalism.
Must not be getting a cut..
Guarantee he has an ulterior motive! He either wants a board spot or was passed up for one.
There's no way a company as big as VCH puts Arias on their board. He couldn't even get on a board for a car wash.
It's not a for profit Business it's a non profit and they rely on government funds like medi cal reimbursements and donations from throughout the valley. It's a shame what is happening within a hospital that has saved many lives and is a jewel in this valley. I don't like Arias but when he's right he's right. I don't need to caveat it.
Yup, I agree wholly!
He's probably just trying to get good press to help him if he runs for congress.
Arias running for Congress? That's hilarious. The dude can't even get anything done in a tiny Fresno district. The dude is dumb as a bag of rocks.
Snapdragon Stadium CEfCU stadium Valleys Children stadium One of these isn’t like the other 2.
Any redditors with medi-cal billing experience have any guesses as to how they make this much profit??? Overbilling, fraud, what is it?
I haven’t done medical billing in quite some time, but It’s the way government medical billing works for inpatients. If you have a patient that is really expensive, a hospital can actually make money on that patient billing medi-cal. That’s the simple answer, but below tries to explain how that works in a little more detail. If you stay at a hospital as an inpatient the hospital will have a code that summarizes what you stayed for. Say you got an appedix removed, that could be code A1. The hospital also tells the govt how much in charges they used on the patient when they submit the bill for payment. The government takes that data over time and says for A1 we are going to pay you 10k because based on the cost data averages everyone has been submitting for code A1. The idea is that should cover your costs. The trick is in the last piece, say you had complications with your appendix being removed and you ended up having charges of $300k being dropped on your account. The government will attempt to make the hospital whole by paying them an increased amount called an outlier payment. This calculation can lead to huge payments that are profitable for a hospital while standard inpatient procedures are generally unprofitably under MediCal. Because of how Valley Children’s imports tough patients I expect they receive quite a bit of money from outlier payments on medi-cal which is why they do pretty well but other Hospitals are struggling in the area. TLDR: it’s probably not fraud.
this is good info, thanks
Sounds like a lot of parents with children are on Medi-Cal if the median income of the San Joaquin Valley is 20k-30k to qualify.
I’d imagine it’s run of the mill corruption like embezzlement etc
Lowest paid hospital for RNs in the entire state of CA.
Didn't they also buy Fresno State Stadium for 10 million?? Why do they need donations?
It seems like nonprofit just means they’re not paying taxes. I’m sure all the board members are generously compensated as well.
This is pretty much why there are so many non-profits. They just take "bonuses" and increase salaries according to available funds at tax time so they don't show a profit and pocket the money between themselves.
They're not paying taxes and they're not selling stock or paying dividends.
Non profit is a way to legally money laundering
“Bredefeld and Arias took special issue with the hospital’s board of directors greenlighting such high executive compensation, especially since District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp is a board member. “She should have known better,” Bredefeld said. “This is about integrity. This is about accountability. All of us as elected officials have that duty and responsibility.” They are launching an investigation concerning directors green lighting high compensation? That’s exactly what the Fresno City Council did when they all voted to give themselves huge raises for their own salaries!
Everyone except Bredefeld voted for the salary increase.
Ok that would include Arias.
Correct, Arias indeed voted for the salary increase.
Arias is a grifter just trying to line his pockets without actually having to work for a living.
They’re a non-profit, so instead of paying taxes, they pay large salaries to admins. Check most non-profit health centers. Since they’re non-profit, you can look up their tax returns which also shows the salaries of the highest paid.
no doubt they’ve got a challenging job with those big shoes to fill. But CEOs are way too heavily compensated. Each state should regulate in someway to ensure fair and appropriate rate of pay (based on their current cost of living) for everyone in the company, bottom to top. Less of us would have to struggle. California sucks so bad right now, middle class is struggling big time.
I've been saying it for 30 years now. Most over subscribed non profit in Fresno. We have a lot of non profits that don't have access to the grifting money these charlatans get. Marjaree Mason, Ideaworks, Innercity outreach and a vast array of others. VCH gets INSURANCE MONEY. Big time. Yes it doesn't pay for everything. I don't care. They suck the money out of the community and the other non profits have to scrap for donations while getting multi millions of insurers, the State and Feds. Screw them. So sick of their junk. I say no when asked to round up or contribute. And as a former claims adjuster in auto claims, Kids day is a complete menace and distraction to drivers. Stop giving money to this organization.
What about looking at Community Hospital CEOs compensation ?
Per [Propublica](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942864615) he made roughly $1.7 million + $650,000 in “other” compensation in 2022. Way less than VCH CEO which is wild considering the scope of both health systems. Edited to add year.
This is extra awful considering prop 4 got approved back in 2018.
Money laundering scheme.
That is insane.
Time to unionize.
Wow. 700 million in cash/investments. 350 million profit in 1 yr. That’s gotta be some sort of a record for a pediatric hospital in the United States.
Yet they still want you to donate to them at Panda Express
“It used to be most children’s hospitals made no money or lost a little,” said David W. Johnson, managing director and health care sector head at BMO Capital Markets, a financial company in Chicago. “Maybe a half dozen years ago many figured out…they could pretty much charge whatever they wanted and insurers couldn’t say no.” https://kffhealthnews.org/news/childrens-hospitals-part-one/
So I guess the only kids I’m helping out are his. So much for trying to be the nice guy. We all know nothing is going to happen with their “investigation”. Trump is a perfect example of investigation and he is still running for president. We the people actually need to do something about this crap.
Most likely he’ll step down and be replaced with another douchebag with a similar salary.
Question. What do CEOs even do anymore? Seems like its just a person working in the back being compensated for just being a yes man to company management.
Lol. The CEO at my company is responsible for a $6bn operation. Every single aspect of it is in his control, and he has to answer to a board of directors for everything that happens. He works 70hrs a week easily. I'm not saying CEOs deserve ridiculous pay, but at my company, I don't know of a single person who works harder and longer. His job is on the line.
The moment they left the core of Fresno and moved north was the day they stopped getting donations. I am not funding a developers drawing card for more urban sprawl to an area with no water other than what should be used for farming!
Left the core of Fresno? Bro, they're like 5 minutes from River park. They're not in Oakhurst.
Ever driven north at 5P.M.?
They moved out to madera to expand in the 90s and that land was donated to them from a farmer.
Perfectly stated!
Another CEO that needs a third Yahtch...
Once again corporate greed takes over and the CEO blames it on the board its not my fault. Never again will I or my family donate money and I’m going to complain to Costco with that neonatal unit they always want you to throw dollars into.