You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers

More answers to your employee forum inquiries

Our Culture

What is the greatest challenge facing the network during the next five years?
Growth is both our greatest opportunity and our most formidable challenge. We have all worked very hard over the past decade to create a culture that values respect, involvement and personal growth. We’ve recruited the best people to work here and put them in roles where they can excel. As a result, we’ve maintained outstanding patient satisfaction scores and remain dedicated to providing our community with the highest quality care. As we grow, we need to be twice as vigilant about recruiting the best and brightest people to join our team, and to teach them about our caring culture. This is the best way to ensure our hospital will remain strong for generations to come.

Health Insurance 

Who is eligible for the Culture of Wellness benefit?
Anyone covered under Choice Plus. Every year, Choice Plus families have $500 to spend on approved Culture of Wellness classes. We’ve made Culture of Wellness even better for 2007. Now you can use your wellness dollars to exercise at the Human Performance Center, LVH-Muhlenberg’s 2649 building or the soon-to-open Healthy You Fitness Club. Plus, we’ve added more classes and are looking for Culture of Wellness providers willing to host programs outside the immediate area to accommodate our geographically expanding workforce.

If a husband and wife both work here, why doesn’t one spouse receive the $50 per month Choice Plus waiver?
Colleagues who choose not to be covered under Choice Plus are compensated $50 per month because LVHHN is not obligated to insure them. Consider this scenario. If a married couple works here, and the wife opts out of the benefit, she is still insured under her husband’s plan. LVHHN is still obligated to insure her. That’s why she doesn’t receive the $50 compensation.

Will we provide benefits for employees in a committed domestic partner relationship?
Although we do not cover domestic partners at this time under Choice Plus, we currently are reviewing all the implications of the request and will advise colleagues when a decision is made.

Community Care

What’s being done to improve services at LVPG practices?
Each practice or department has a service ambassador, a colleague who displays extraordinary service behaviors. Ambassadors worked with organizational development to become specialists in understanding the patient experience. The practices also developed service promises and behavior standards which are integrated with the PRIDE behaviors. LVPG also developed a customer service and sensitivity training program, which will be utilized for new hires and as an annual competency.

What involvement do we have with the local emergency medical services (EMS) community?
We have a great relationship with the EMS community. We are one of the top EMS training centers, providing more than 150 in-service programs each year. We don’t do it to attract new patients. We do it because it’s the right thing to do. EMS crews do not decide what hospital their patients are taken to. The patient has the ultimate say in where they go for treatment. If the patient can’t communicate where they want to go, the EMS crew follows a set of protocols mandated by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania about where to take the patient.

Salaries and Benefits

Why aren’t benefits for part-time colleagues prorated?
PTO for part-time colleagues is prorated. The more hours you work, the more PTO time you earn. It’s illegal to prorate health insurance coverage based on hours worked. That’s why all part-time colleagues pay the same amount for Choice Plus. Instead of being prorated, the amount of sick time earned and the SSP bonus for part-time colleagues is half of what full-time colleagues earn.  

Why is our SSP bonus and tuition reimbursement taxed?
Tuition reimbursement is not taxed. The government allows it to be tax exempt. The government does not allow a bonus to be tax exempt because it is income. 

Will new options be added to our retirement choices?
We will review our investment options yearly to determine if changes are necessary. And don’t forget, you can invest in any mutual fund you wish through our Schwab option. Ask your AIG VALIC advisor about it.

Construction

Are we considering a transitional skilled unit (TSU) at LVH-Cedar Crest?
There are no plans to do so at this time.

Nursing / Improved Care
 
Are there plans to update our behavioral health services?
We always are evaluating ways to improve access to our services in the community.  Although we currently are assessing a number of projects, we have not yet reached final decisions.

Will we offer services for drug and alcohol addiction?
We do help patients with mental health disorders who also are struggling with substance abuse. We do not have plans to offer services to treat drug and alcohol abuse alone.

Are any changes, such as night hours or prescriptions by mail, planned for our pharmacy services?
No such changes are planned. Already, we offer prescriptions by mail for staff members who work at sites located more than 30 minutes from our pharmacies. To accommodate staff members’ varied shifts, our pharmacy at LVH-Cedar Crest is open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

If you can’t get samples from your physician and need an emergency prescription filled while Health Spectrum Pharmacies are closed, you can get prescriptions partially filled from any pharmacy. You’ll need to pay out-of-pocket, but Spectrum Administrators will reimburse you the amount covered under our prescription plan. When Health Spectrum opens, we’ll call the pharmacy you visited and have the prescription transferred to one of our pharmacies, where the remainder of the prescription will be filled.      

Why can technical partners only wear royal blue uniforms?
Uniforms always have been decided by the respective advisory groups – in this case, the technical partners’ advisory group. The decision was consensus among its members. Different uniforms also help patients identify who is caring for them—a physician, nurse or technical partner.

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