Arkansas Business

St. Vincent Health System of Little Rock laid off 29 employees last week and another 21 positions were eliminated this month through attrition in an attempt to cut $12 million from its budget.

"Our volume is growing, but it's a little softer than we had anticipated," St. Vincent CEO Peter Banko told Arkansas Business Tuesday. "We're also anticipating some reimbursement cuts coming forward with Medicare and Medicaid, so we wanted to stay ahead of the curve."

He said the labor costs would save St. Vincent about $2.5 million. He said the rest of the savings would come from other initiatives, including renegotiating its contracts with vendors.

He said he didn't think the cuts would have impact on partnership talks with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which were announced Aug. 30 and are continuing.

For the fiscal year that ended June 30, St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center reported $1.1 billion in total patient revenue and a net income of $7.7 million.

It has about 3,000 employees.