Endless waiting.
Inadequate care.
Preventable deaths.

There’s an elephant in the waiting room of every California clinic & hospital: our healthcare is in crisis and we need to talk about it.

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The Elephant: Hospital & clinic misplaced priorities and mismanagement have created a staffing shortage that impacts patient care.

The Wall Street Playbook

Major California community clinics claim to be “non-profit.” In fact, some have become huge corporations with a Wall Street playbook approach to healthcare management: slashing staff and using that money on massive executive salaries and spending that has nothing to do with their mission of patient care. Below are just a few of the ways in which California clinics have operated like corporate raiders.

Community Health Centers of the Central Coast employs more than 1,000 healthcare workers, serving Santa Barbara County, who have a minimum wage of $21 per hour, while the CEO rakes in the equivalent of $1,334 per hour – more than his frontline caregivers make in a week.

Community Health Centers of Central Coast Footprint$175,020,6482023 Revenue40 Clinics$2,776,761CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $1,335/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/HourFor the lowest-paid clinic workers$53.2 MillionMore that could be spent on patient care & services

AltaMed is one of California’s largest clinic systems, serving the Los Angeles area, and like all FQHC clinics, is funded primarily by taxes intended to ensure care for vulnerable low-income populations. But AltaMed has lost sight of that mission, spending nearly half a million dollars to import art from Europe, among other questionable decisions.

AltaMed’s Footprint$1,480,779,622 2023 Revenue133 Clinics$1,937,418CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $931/hour for a 40-hour work week!$25/hourFor the lowest-paid AltaMed workers$109.2 MillionMore that could be spent on patient care & services
San Ysidro Health’s Footprint$521,784,7462023 Revenue47 Clinics$521,784,746CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $635/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid San Ysidro Health workers$41,077,655More that could be spent on patient care & services
Omni Family Health’s Footprint$139,000,7032023 Revenue47 Clinics$988,858CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $475/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid Omni Family Health workers$41,077,655More that could be spent on patient care & services
Wellspace Health’s Footprint$144,431,220in 2023 Revenue31 Clinics$619,353CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $297/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid Wellspace Health workers$9,261,148More that could be spent on patient care & services
Vista Community Clinic’s Footprint$108,778,3722023 Revenue22 Clinics$702,704CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $337/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid Vista Community Clinic workers$9,113,658More that could be spent on patient care & services
Family Health Centers of San Diego’s Footprint$436,375,4232023 Revenue78 Clinics$969,210CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $465/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid Family Health Centers of San Diego workers$110,073,145More that could be spent on patient care & services
Innercare’s Footprint$103,704,5122023 Revenue13 Clinics$652,793CEO total compensation 2023That’s the equivalent of $313/hour for a 40-hour work week!$21/hourFor the lowest-paid Innercare workers$29,032,583More that could be spent on patient care & services

Inflated Executive Salaries

44 Community Clinic executives receive over $500,000 in annual total compensation, and 6 make more than $1,000,000. These exorbitant salaries come at the expense of frontline caregivers and the patients they serve.

Elephant Standing Over Man in Crowded Hospital Waiting Room

Taking the Easy Way Out

California clinics continue to invest in quick-fix solutions that don’t fix anything, while our quality of care plummets.

Reducing staff and services. Traveling nurses. More operational cuts. These are some of the “solutions” dysfunctional clinic systems are putting in place to address the staffing shortage they put into motion. It’s not working – the equivalent of putting a bandaid over a bullet wound. Which isn’t far off from the quality of care you’d be receiving if we don’t change course now.

Every day, patients across California are experiencing the consequences of a dysfunctional healthcare system. From minor frustrations like long wait times, to major, life-threatening shortfalls in care, we’ve all felt what it means to be let down by failing healthcare. Here’s what the system doesn’t want you to know. And, what you can do about it.

The Impact: Mismanagement, short-staffing, and lack of investment in care.

We Pay The Price For Their Bad Decisions

What happens when clinic management plays roulette with our healthcare dollars? CEOs pocket record-breaking paydays while everyday healthcare workers pay the price. Here are a few examples of how everyday California patients are paying the price for the terrible decisions management continues to make.

Decreased Hospital Care and Community Benefits

Decreased Community Benefits

Community clinics are funded primarily by tax dollars, but some spend less than 50% of their revenue on the mission of care, all while paying bloated CEO salaries.

Elephant Standing in Hospital Waiting Room

Healthcare Worker Stories

See how patients and workers are being impacted by hospital greed.

Healthcare Worker Quote - I had an elderly patient who spent 8 hours in the waiting room because of understaffing
Healthcare Worker Quote - I walked in on a patient in the fetal position, crying at the top of her lungs. We were so understaffed that nobody heard her.

Community Health Centers’ Big Profits Raise Questions About Federal Oversight
Patient Hospitalized After Experiencing Harmful Health Event

Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. hospitalized patients experience harmful events, study finds
Hospital Emergency Room Experiencing Extremely Long Wait Times

California: The 6th longest average emergency room wait time in the nation

The Solution: How to fix California’s healthcare system

If clinics are able to spend that much to pay executives and play the financial markets, why aren’t they able to invest in necessary medical equipment, adequate staffing, or quality patient care? Because of old-fashioned corporate greed, our healthcare system is being severely mismanaged, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s time to address the elephant in the waiting room.

Put Patients Over Profits

Clinic systems, even non-profits, are putting profits over patients. They have put a Wall Street playbook over community care, and it’s time for them to recommit to providing the best care to each patient – regardless of financial status and background. We need clinics and hospitals to recommit to investing in public health. That means they need to drop their investments in fossil fuels, fast food, and any other industry that harms California communities.

Invest In Healthcare Workers

Clinic systems urgently need to end the understaffing crisis, and the path to doing that is simple. Healthcare execs need to recognize the people who do the real work, and make sure that they are treated with dignity. That means increased pay across the board, competitive benefits, and an investment in training and career development opportunities. And community clinics that are primarily funded through taxpayer dollars need to ensure that 90% of their total funding is spent on the mission of providing care. Understaffing won’t get fixed overnight, but there are clear things that clinics can do today to make life a little bit easier for our overworked, and oftentimes underappreciated, healthcare workers.

Train The Next Gen of Caregivers

Healthcare workers are essential in every community but they’ve faced disastrous working conditions and low pay for a long time. It’s no wonder that so few Californians are joining the trade. That’s why SEIU-UHW created the Futuro Health program to train the next generation of allied health workers. To solve the understaffing crisis, we need hospital systems to renew their investment in future employees by committing a sizable budget to long-term fixes to our staffing problems.

Promote Transparency

If clinics are meant to serve patients, then patients deserve to know what providers are spending their money on. We need complete transparency over any large investments made by a California clinic system. That means a complete list of every investment in their portfolios, how much each executive is being paid – both in salary and bonuses, and the amount invested in short-term solutions to understaffing.

Share your experience as a patient in a California clinic.

If you’ve been impacted by decreasing quality of care in a California clinic, we want to hear from you. We will never share your story without contacting you first.

    Who We Are

    The Elephant in the Waiting Room is proudly brought to you by the dedicated healthcare workers of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW). We are a union dedicated to ensuring our workers have everything they need to provide the high-quality care their patients need. That includes sounding the alarm on the understaffing crisis and its cause: underinvestment in healthcare.