Published on August 4, 2009 at 6:56 PM
Modern Healthcare has published it's annual survey of compensation for the health care CEOs of the 10 largest companies, by revenue, in three sectors: acute-care hospitals, health insurers and specialty-care providers.
For the first time in seven years, Modern Healthcare reports, the survey "failed to turn up a healthcare CEO who raked in more than $15 million in compensation last year. The performance of the stock market in 2008 was a big reason that the compensation of the 30 CEOs covered by the survey was relatively low. Not a single CEO cashed in stock options worth more than $10 million in 2008, also a first for the survey."
The magazine predicts that the "relative down year" for these executives "probably won't generate much empathy" for them because "the median compensation... was still a bit more than $4 million. Moreover, as the detailed disclosures on executive pay required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show, every CEO has stock options that could be worth millions as the equity markets recover" (Galloro, Vesely and Zigmond, 8/3).