PITTSBURGH (AP) - Thirty executives or doctors at the nonprofit University of Pittsburgh Medical Center health system were paid at least $1 million last year, according to newly released tax documents.
The disclosure comes as UPMC, Pennsylvania’s largest private employer, fights efforts by Pittsburgh city officials to strip it of its nonprofit status and as the health system prepares to take most of its facilities and doctors out of network for subscribers of Pennsylvania health insurance giant Highmark.
The health system’s disclosure Friday is part of a filing by tax-exempt entities required by the Internal Revenue Service.
Leading the list is President and CEO Jeffrey Romoff, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review of Pittsburgh. His total compensation for 2012 was $6.55 million, up by about $500,000 from 2011.
Six others at UPMC were paid at least $2 million.
City officials have singled out executive compensation as one of the reasons UPMC should lose its nonprofit status, which includes city property and payroll tax exemptions.
The UPMC Group filing says the system employs 55,300 people at 12 hospitals and 24 other subsidiaries. Overall, UPMC says, it has 62,000 employees and operates 22 hospitals and 400 outpatient sites.
Critics of UPMC questioned how the executive compensation packages square with the system’s charitable mission.
“How does paying its CEO $6.6 million a year, while cutting patients out of its network in the name of competition, help UPMC fulfill a charitable mission?” said Cathy Doerfler, a registered nurse at Allegheny General Hospital and a member of the Service Employees International Union.
The union is trying to organize service and maintenance workers at several UPMC hospitals. UPMC declined to comment.
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