Vanderbilt University’s Medical Center looks like the latest victim of new healthcare rules: It has trimmed over 1000 employees from its roles ahead of the implementation of new rules that adversely effect its finances in a variety of ways.

Vanderbilt is making these job cuts, according to [Jeffrey Balser, head of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center], to prepare for various financial pressures facing Vanderbilt, including an aging population, lower reimbursement rates from insurance companies, a lack of Medicaid expansion in Tennessee and a reduction in National Institutes of Health grant funding.

Vanderbilt’s medical center generates about two-thirds of Vanderbilt’s operating revenue, according to Vanderbilt’s financial report from the 2012 fiscal year.

While Vanderbilt’s health care operations have produced positive operating results in each of the last five fiscal years, the report says, “future changes in the health care market and regulations could adversely affect future financial results of operations.”

Earlier this summer, the medical center let go up to 300 people, but that round of cuts did not count toward the final tally of 1,033 cut jobs. Vanderbilt is the region’s largest private employer with more than 20,000 employees.

Vanderbilt has mitigated its staff reduction in various ways, Howser said, including a hiring freeze that has been in place for several months and an early retirement option for some employees. About 250 employees opted to take that option in July, according to VUMC officials.

Vanderbilt must report these latest staff reductions to the state and federal governments in order to comply with a federal law called the Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification, or WARN, Act.

The government considers a layoff a “mass layoff” when an institution cuts 500 or more jobs within a 30-day period, and employees must be given written notice of those events.