Executive Compensation at Mass General Brigham (2021)

Mass General Brigham (formerly known as Partners HealthCare) is a non-profit, tax-exempt healthcare provider with 16 member institutions that include hospitals (14), medical centers, urgent and emergency care facilities, community health centers, physician and rehabilitation networks, a teaching organization, health insurance plan, and more in the Boston area who changed its name to Mass General Brigham (taking the name of two premier hospitals: Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s) in November, 2019.

With an estimated 82,000 employees (including 6,500 physicians and 9,100 registered nurses), Mass General Brigham is the largest private employer and healthcare provider in Massachusetts. The Mass General Brigham healthcare network has dozens of related and affiliated tax-exempt organizations and several taxable as a corporation, partnership, or trust (see Schedule R of the Form 990’s).

This post only addresses the executive compensation reported on the Form 990 (2020) for Mass General Brigham Incorporated, the administrative non-profit (whose revenue derives from related and affiliated organizations for managing the whole network) for the year ending September 30, 2021.  Key information about this entity is summarized as follows:

• Total revenue was $2.0 billion (compared to $2.2 billion the previous year), most of which came from three sources:  related organizations ($500 million), administrative fees ($1.2 billion) – both of which appear to come from organizations within the Mass General Brigham health system; and gains on the sale of assets and investment income ($300 million);
• Expenses totaled $1.6 billion (including $69 million in depreciation), most of which came from 6 categories of expenses:  compensation ($842 million), interest ($228 million), office-related expenses ($179 million), fees for services ($121 million), and grants ($79 million of which $36 million was to Mass General Brigham Community Physicians, $22 million was to Spaulding Rehabilitation and $5 million to North Shore Physicians Group – all affiliates for support); and
• Net assets are $325 million – compared to a negative $2 billion at the beginning of the year – which is a huge swing accomplished by not spending as much as collected (primarily from related and affiliated organizations), unrealized gains on investments ($335 million) and non-service related pension income.

Compensation was the largest expense for Mass General Brigham.  7,466 employees (about 10% of the total organization’s employees, and 300 less than the previous year) received $842 million, which equates to an average compensation of $113,000.  However, only 1,783 employees received more than $100,000 with the 19 most highly compensated employees were reported to be:

• $4,286,186:  Anne Kilbanski, President, CEO, and Director
• $2,767,702:  Peter K Markell, EVP, CFO and Treasurer
• $2,741,542:  John R Barker, Chief Investment Officer
• $1,979,381:  Ron Walls, COO
• $1,856,597:  Gregg S. Meyer, Chief Clinical Officer
• $1,440,100:  Laura Peabody, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel
• $1,483,043:  Elizabeth L Baldwin, Portfolio Manager
• $1,253,447:  Jeff A Weiss, Chief Strategy and Transf Office
• $1,252,197:  Katherine L Kamm, Portfolio Manager
• $1,162,386:  Ravi Thadhani, Chief Academic Officer
• $1,118,905:  James W Noga, VP and CIO
• $1,111,334:  Sean P Blatchley, Portfolio Manager
• $1,061,927:  Rosemary R Sheehan, Chief HR Officer
• $  977,257:  Alistair Erskine, Chief Digital Health Officer
• $  930,070:  Ali Salim, Director *
• $  898,880:  William Curry, Director (3/23/21)*
• $  695,343:  Kevin Schlicke, Interim Treasurer (4/1/21-5/2/21)
• $  442,756:  Rochelle Walensky, Director *until 1/4/21)
• $  239,953:  Maureen Goggin, Secretary

As illustrated above, the 12 of the 19 (63%) most highly compensated employees are male while 7 of the 19 (37%)are female (including the most highly compensated employee)

The three most highly compensated employees received $21 million in compensation over the past 2 years:

Anne Kilbanski

• 2021:  $4,286,146
• 2020:  $4,136,125

Peter Markell

• 2021:  $2,767,702
• 2020:  $3,689,904

John Barker

• 2021:  $2,741,542
• 2020:  $2,918,732