Working toward a fair and sustainable labor contract 

08/01/2024

Clients and community members may notice informational picketing by Compass Health colleagues, related to ongoing labor contract negotiations.

We want to assure our clients that during this time, our services are available and they should continue to attend regularly scheduled appointments. Our top priority is to support our clients and their families and ensure access to care.

Compass Health also fully respects our team members’ rights to voice their opinions and advocate for the issues and policies that are important to them. We are focused on finalizing a fair and equitable contract that meets union members’ needs while ensuring our organization can continue to sustainably operate and serve community members.

Below is more information about this situation, and answers to frequently asked questions about our organization’s efforts to reach an agreement that enables everyone to move forward.

How long has Compass Health been negotiating with union representatives?

We’ve been engaged in bargaining for the past 14 months, aiming to reach a new agreement on models for compensation, including healthcare benefits, and more.

What would team member compensation look like under Compass Health’s proposal?

A central component of our proposal is a thoughtful and transparent market-based compensation program. We’re hopeful that union representatives and membership will recognize that market-based compensation is essential for Compass Health to be able to compete for talent in recruitment and retention, so that we have the capacity to serve clients when they need us.

More specifically, what would that include?

Compass Health’s proposal includes:

• Increasing compensation to help bring all positions within the bargaining unit up to competitive market rates.
• A year-one wage increase of at least 6% for everyone and up to 22% for the positions that are most difficult to currently recruit for, including clinicians, care coordinators and nurses. Our proposal includes wage increases in subsequent years, as well.
• Meaningful wage increases to provide market-based competitive pay for other positions, including peer counselor roles, which serve as entry points for the profession and make a significant impact on client outcomes.

Our proposal also includes about $1.6 million in retroactive pay, which we cannot release to employees unless and until the contract is ratified.

Why is it important to be competitive in recruiting mental health professionals?

When we are able to recruit more team members and retain them, we can better share work- and caseloads, prevent burnout, ensure access to care and create a better, more stable experience for clients – as well as a better experience for staff.

Do extended negotiation periods undermine those efforts?

Yes – and that is why Compass Health is working urgently to reach an agreement. During the time we continue to operate without a labor contract, we’re unable to increase compensation levels to ensure we are competitive with other potential employers, which creates a cascade of negative impacts. When positions remain open and unfilled for weeks and months, it places greater burdens on existing staff members and creates financial challenges organization-wide.

I’ve heard there might be changes to employee health plans. What do those entail?

Under Compass Health’s proposal, there will be new options for health benefits – and we’ve worked diligently to preserve the comprehensive coverage that’s so important to our team.  

While coverage will remain robust, our suggested changes are focused on helping to mitigate the rising costs of premiums. Keeping premiums lower accomplishes two objectives. It allows Compass Health to preserve funds for wages – and we would rather pay those dollars to our staff vs. insurance companies. It will also make it more affordable for staff to add family members and other dependents to their plan.

How does this immediate situation affect client care?

We want to reassure clients, family members and other healthcare professionals who refer individuals that we are working to ensure services remain uninterrupted during this time.

Again, we remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement soon that will both resolve this immediate situation and place team members and our organization on a sustainable and competitive path for the future.

I thought community behavioral health providers received recent increases in Medicaid funding for your services – why can’t you just pass that along to staff?

Unfortunately, because of the complexities of the community behavioral health system, fee-for-service reimbursement, years of chronic underfunding and the fact that various programs have different funding sources, it’s not a simple pass-through equation.

For example, state lawmakers have increased reimbursement rates for Medicaid services in recent years, including a 15% increase in January 2024. This 15% rate increase applies to only about 67% of Compass Health’s total services. Plus, prior to the rate increase, we were not breaking even.

While we’re grateful for these legislative efforts, the fact is that these rate increases have been playing catchup with our expenses. Our proposal leverages what we can out of Medicaid rate increases to bring all our positions up to market rates, in line with our goal  to remain competitive with other employers for our valuable staff. 

What is Compass Health doing to address issues around systemic underfunding and its impact on workforce challenges?

In the short term, we’re ready to boost paychecks so that we can make a more immediate impact on recruitment and retention.

As a long-term solution, we’ve been very active in advocating for systemic funding changes statewide, so that we can sustainably meet the needs of our communities and compensate professionals for their incredibly important work. Along with other providers, we are advocating for statewide adoption of the CCBHC model, an innovative, nationally proven approach to strengthening our community behavioral health system.

For more information, please contact compass.communities@compassh.org.