Health care CFOs see recession lasting through year, but some pay raises safe — MedCity morning read, May 5, 2009

"Recession Lane," by flickr user Zen Traveler Eight in 10financial chiefs at health care organizations surveyed by audit, tax and advisoryfirm Grant Thornton expect the worstrecession since the Great Depression to keep its hold on the U.S. economythrough theend of the year.

Sixty-percent of the health care CFOs expect to do lessbusiness travel this year to cut costs, the survey found. However, financial leaders at health care organizations are less likely to cut pay raises — only 43 percent– compared with 65 percent of CFOs at a broad range of companies nationwide, Grant Thornton found.

“Of all the industries health care appears to have bucked the trend of cutting raises this year, asa way to cut costs,” Anne McGeorge, managing partner of Grant Thornton’s health care practice, said in her firm’s release of health care survey results.

Health care CFOs inhealth care represent the only industry group in which less than 50 percent of executives said they wouldcut pay raises this year to save money. At the high end of the industry scale, 74 percent of finance chiefs at real estate companies said they would cut raises, followed by 71 percent of financial leaders at manufacturers and 70 percent of those at technology companies.

The health care survey findings come with a serious disclaimer: Grant Thornton surveyed only 37 chief financial officers and controllers at both public and private companies in the U.S. health care industry in late March and early April.

The tinynumber ofrespondentsleads toquestions about the meaningfulness ofthe surveyresults.But at five years old, Grant Thornton said its Survey of Senior Financial Officials is the longest-running survey of its kind.

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