CT hospital system loses 15 doctors amid management change. Officials fear patient care will deteriorate

Hartford Courant – Monday, April 7, 2025
By Livi Stanford

An estimated 30% of hospitalists are leaving Trinity Health of New England, raising concerns about patient care amid a physician shortage in Connecticut.

Those physicians, with the majority of the 15 from Saint Francis Hospital, decided to part ways with Trinity after the health system required them to shift their employment to California-based Vituity within 90 days or risk losing their jobs. The transition goes into effect on April 7.

Sen. Saud Anwar, Senate chairman of the Public Health Committee, said the actions of the administration of Trinity resulted in the physicians leaving, and expressed concern about patient care and describing it as a “profit-driven motive” that is “truly painful.”

Doctors and several legislators say they’re also worried about impacts to patient care and the need keep doctors in the state. Trinity argues that the employment shift is beneficial for the health system and its patients and says the vast majority of emergency and hospitalists have agreed to stay on.

Several legislators are advocating for the passage of HB 6873, requested by Gov. Ned Lamont, which seeks to strengthen the review of health care entity transactions providing more oversight in hospitals where such partnerships like Vituity occur.

Dr. Damian Kalisiewicz, a doctor at Saint Francis Hospital who primarily worked part-time because of what he described as a grueling workload due to a yearslong staffing shortage, said he chose to leave the hospital, in part, because of the mandate to join Vituity.

He said physicians should be seeing 18 patients in a 12-hour period but instead are seeing 22 to 24 patients. He emphasized that burnout and quality of care starts to deteriorate over 18 patients.

“I think profits over patient safety and care is prioritized, which is how I look at this decision being made,” he said. “It is not for the providers. It is not for the patients. It is for the hospital itself.”

Kalisiewicz has said that he has seen patients in the ER for days waiting for a bed and not obtaining MRIs in a reasonable amount of time.

He said he is also concerned if the number of patients doctors see continues to rise, new providers will have difficulty adjusting to the environment as Saint Francis, which provides highly complex and advanced medical services.

“I am concerned that they will have difficulty bringing on new providers in this particular hospital system,” he said.

Anwar said patients have complexities and that every patient needs specific attention.

“For a number of hours a physician is working, if she or he is supposed to be seeing a certain number of patients agreed to in a contract and the breach of that contract becomes a norm every single day and they are being pushed into seeing more patients in the number of hospitals it adds stress to the physician providing the care and it also reduces the level of care that should be provided to every patient,” he said.

Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, a Fairfield Democrat, serving as co-chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee, said the No. 1 focus is making sure patients have access to quality, safe and effective care. She said she had concerns about the lack of communication between the providers and Trinity concerning the transition to Vituity.

She said it is integral that the legislature and DPH continue to ensure that the hospital is maintaining quality care.

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, said he found the issue troublesome.

“It is highly likely to negatively impact care,” he said. “They are outsourcing key elements of hospital care. We need to know what the terms of the deal are.”

90 days

On Jan. 6, Trinity sent a message to 120 emergency room and hospitalist physicians informing them that they had 90 days to shift their employment to Vituity, breaking a four-month termination notice in employee contracts.

Trinity Health of New England operates Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs and Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Center in Hartford.

State Democratic Sens. Jan Hochadel, MD Rahman, Jorge Cabrera and Democratic state Reps. McCarthy Vahey, Kaitlyn Shake, Kara Rochelle and Maryam Khan, joined Anwar on Jan. 30 in support of Trinity employees affected by the decision, calling on the health system to reverse its decision — to no avail.

Trinity Health of New England asserts that the partnership with Vituity will align with the hospital’s commitment to high quality care.

In an email to the Courant, Stephanie Valickis, regional communications manager for Trinity Health of New England, said that Vituity “has a long-standing history of success in improving patient care, access to care, hospital efficiency and provider support in many states across the country.

She added that Vituity is not a private-equity company and is a 100% physician-owned democratic partnership. She said a vast majority of the providers have made the transition and that the partnership with Vituity will provide “access to an experienced pool of providers.”

John Hansen, director of marketing and public relations for Vituity, said 91% of emergency medicine and 71% of hospital medicine physicians and advanced providers have chosen to remain at Trinity Health of New England.

“All visa physicians will continue their work at these Trinity hospitals,” he said. “These high retention rates reflect stronger confidence in the new partnership and ensure continuity of care for patients and communities across the region.”

There were concerns for about 30% of physicians who are on visas and not allowed to work for a company such as Vituity.

Vituity

Vituity describes itself as a 100% physician-owned democratic partnership with a network of 6,000 clinicians caring for more than 10 million patients at over 690 practice locations.

The California-based company once known as CEP America has found itself embroiled in several lawsuits.

Law 360 reported last month that Vituity “agreed to pay $8.75 million to resolve a proposed class action alleging it excessively charged workers $600 in annual retirement plan management fees in violation of federal benefits law, according to a California federal court filing,” the article stated.

Also, the Fresno Bee reported in January that the “Central California Hospital Medicine Group Inc. filed a lawsuit on Dec. 23 against (St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno) “alleging it violated the state’s unfair competition laws, Medi-Cal laws and its own bylaws when it entered into an exclusive contract with” Vituity.

The Central California Hospital Medicine Group Inc. is an independent multi-speciality group of 12 local physicians and six nurse practitioners.

Dr. Alireza Zadsalamat, head of CCHMG, said since the contract with Vituity went into effect in 2024, doctors no longer had autonomy to see their patients, but strictly those contracted with Vituity.

“They won’t let me take care of my own patients there,” he said. “They want to control all the patients and in other words control the money and that is what they want. All these decisions are based on money.”

He said in 2020 when he worked for Vituity in Hanford, California, he was let go when he raised concerns about patient care, describing 30 patients to a doctor and raising concerns about doctors’ medical backgrounds, describing them as inexperienced.

“Anytime you have an administration exerting too much control over the doctors caring for patients in the hospital, more wrong decisions will be made,” he said. “You are making decisions based on money, not patients.”

He said currently at Saint Agnes Medical Center one CNA and one aide are assigned to help 55 people go to the restroom, a number he said is inadequate to care for patients.

Dr. Gurvinder Kaur, president of Saint Agnes Medical Center, previously was the senior regional director of Vituity.

Hansen said Vituity physicians are “highly qualified, board-certified professionals with deep experience in emergency and hospital medicine.”

“All Vituity physicians are fully credentialed and licensed in the states where they practice,” he said. “They meet or exceed all hospital and regulatory requirements, including board certification, and undergo rigorous credentialing and privileging processes.”

Legislation

In response to the situation at Trinity, the Public Health Committee originally introduced SB 1452, which would establish various employment protections for hospital-affiliated physicians. The bill included language that no hospital should assign an attending physician more than 18 patients during a 12-hour shift.

The bill further clarified that no health system should make any staffing change to a group practice without consulting with the physician members of the practice and submitting a staffing change for review to the Commissioner of Health Strategy.

The bill further outlines that if the health system makes any such change without consulting the physician members or receiving approval for such staffing changes from the Commissioner of Health Strategy, that the Commissioner of Public Health could appoint an independent monitor.

The committee, however, is not moving forward with this bill but has incorporated parts of it into the governor’s bill, according to Anwar.

In her written testimony to the Public Health Committee, DPH Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani said more clarification was needed in regard to the independent monitor.

Overall Juthani said, “DPH does not have the subject matter expertise to enforce employment contracts nor interpret just cause for employment matters.”

Anwar said HB 6873 would ensure if there is going to be any material change of transaction of a health care entity it would have to go through the Office of Health Strategy and the Attorney General for review.

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