Jobless former hospital executive? Severance payments/golden parachutes are a lot higher these days.

Many  hospital chief executives are paying the price of unemployment as the hospital merger mania continues, with, naturally, CEO’s of stand-alone hospitals at the most risk.

One example is Keith Safian, the longtime head of Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., who lost his job when the hospital joined the larger North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in January. Though he remains positive about his future, Safian told Crain’s New York Business:

“There’s a wealth of opportunity [in healthcare]. But not for hospital CEOs.”

Administrative ranks typically feel merger effects more than their clinical counterparts, because as a consultant told Crain’s: “It tends to be the higher-ups where the excess resides.”