All ‘A’s for local hospitals

May 10, 2022Read more

Mission Hospital employees Erin Young (left ) and Lindsey Regner celebrate LeapFrog “A” safety grade // Mission photo

HCA-owned Mission Hospital in Asheville, Pardee UNC Health Care in Hendersonville, and AdventHealth Hendersonville all earned “A” grades in the Spring 2022 national hospital safety ratings by the nonprofit LeapFrog Group. Grades are updated twice annually, in the fall and spring, and for AdventHealth it was the 12th straight “A” grade.

Pardee’s score improved from a “B” in Fall 2021. Mission repeated its “A” score from Fall 2021, after getting a “B” in Spring 2021.

Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion also earned an “A” grade in the Spring 2022 ratings, but Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, Rutherford Regional Medical Center in Rutherfordton, and Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva all collected “B” grades.

The Leapfrog Group assigns an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” grade to all general hospitals across the country. The grade uses more than 30 measures of safety data including rates of preventable errors, injuries and infections, while also accounting for whether hospitals have systems in place to protect patients from harm.

Nationwide, 33 percent of nearly 3,000 general hospitals achieved “A” ratings. North Carolina ranked first among all states for the percentage of A-rated hospitals, with 59.8 percent of all general hospitals earning the top grade. — Peter H. Lewis

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Cawthorn Pulls a Fast One In Buncombe County Plea Deal

April 18, 2022Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC11)

Congressman Madison Cawthorn was able to dodge a serious speeding charge in Buncombe County by making a pre-trial plea deal with District Attorney Todd Williams just days before the State of Georgia alerted Williams’s office that Cawthorn’s license had been suspended as the result of a 2019 conviction for speeding and driving with an expired tag,

Meanwhile, Cawthorn was a no-show in Polk County court on Monday to face the second of three charges he’s collected in recent months for speeding and other alleged driving violations.

Last month Cawthorn, through a lawyer, pleaded guilty to a reduced speeding charge in Buncombe County after striking a plea deal with Williams and paying a fine. Cawthorn had been ticketed for driving 89 miles per hour in a 65 m.p.h. zone near Swannanoa in October. In return for the guilty plea, Williams agreed to reduce the charge to traveling just 74 miles per hour, a lesser infraction that allowed Cawthorn to keep his license without going to trial as scheduled on March 4.

But had he been aware of Cawthorn’s conviction in the December 2019 case in Clayton County, Georgia, Williams told Asheville Watchdog, he would not have agreed to offer the 26-year-old congressman the plea deal. The more serious charge could have resulted in Cawthorn facing up to 20 days in jail and fines up to $200.

Although the Georgia speeding citation occurred in December 2019, it wasn’t settled until August 2021 when the conviction was entered and Cawthorn’s license was revoked. But, according to Williams, the State of Georgia didn’t report the revocation to North Carolina until February, after the pre-trial deal had already been reached with Williams’ office.

Williams said that when he learned of the Georgia revocation he inquired about reopening the case. But, he said, because Cawthorn had already paid the fine, the case was closed. Williams said the plea deal took advantage of what he called a “legal fiction” in North Carolina law where the driver can blame a faulty speedometer and receive leniency.

In the Polk County case, Cawthorn was ticketed in January for driving 87 miles per hour in a 70 m.p.h. zone, and ordered to face the charge in court April 18. But his lawyer, Gabrielle Valentine, appeared on Cawthorn’s behalf and successfully asked that the case be postponed until June 2.

Valentine offered no reason for the requested delay and commented later that it was “routine.” Cawthorn’s press secretary, Luke Ball, did not respond to Asheville Watchdog’s request for an explanation of the delay and whether Cawthorn planned to contest the charge.

The postponement means the case will not be heard until after the May 17 primary election, where the incumbent Cawthorn faces seven challengers in the Republican race to represent western North Carolina in Congress.

Cawthorn still faces a third court date for a charge on March 3 near Shelby in Cleveland County. That alleged violation occurred shortly after North Carolina had been notified that Cawthorn’s license had been revoked for speeding in Georgia. The state trooper stopped the congressman for swerving across the highway centerline, but charged him only with driving with the revoked license. That case is scheduled to be heard May 6, just days before the May 17 GOP primary.

The Cleveland County charge is a misdemeanor criminal offense that could result in a jail sentence of up to 20 days, as well as a fine of up to $200. — Tom Fiedler

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NC Justice Department Scolds HCA-Mission For High Prices, Declining Quality of Care

April 1, 2022Read more

Greg Lowe

The North Carolina Department of Justice notified the Mission Health System last week that it was “extremely concerned” about ongoing citizen complaints over high prices, lack of transparency, anti-competitive behavior, chronic under-staffing, and declining quality of care at HCA-managed medical facilities in western North Carolina.

In a letter to Greg Lowe,

In a letter to Greg Lowe, president of HCA Healthcare’s North Carolina division, Assistant Attorney General Llogan R. Walters wrote that his office was still receiving “troubling allegations regarding patients not receiving proper care, core functions being reduced and not replaced, and subpar conditions regarding basic sanitation and cleanliness” at Mission Hospital and other HCA facilities. The letter was provided to Asheville Watchdog this week by Attorney General Joshua H. Stein’s office.

Lowe responded to Walters in a letter dated March 30, writing that “MHS remains invested in having an ongoing dialogue with the North Carolina Department of Justice regarding any concerns it has related to MHS.”

Also this week, Stein, acting on behalf of the State of North Carolina, filed a legal brief in Buncombe County Superior Court urging the court to reject Mission Health’s request to dismiss a class-action lawsuit brought against it by local residents. Dismissal of the lawsuit would prevent an outside investigation into HCA-Mission’s business practices.

The lawsuit alleges anti-competitive behavior by Mission Health that results in higher prices for all healthcare consumers in western North Carolina, where HCA and Mission have an effective monopoly.

The plaintiffs in the class-action suit include Katherine Button, Faith Cook, and Will Overfelt of Asheville, Richard Nash of Candler, William Davis of Clyde, and Jonathan Powell of Morganton. The complaint was prepared by the law firms Wallace & Graham of Salisbury, N.C., and Fairmark Partners of Washington, D.C.

The “friend of the court” brief filed by Stein on Wednesday follows a similar amicus brief filed in support of the plaintiffs by Dale Folwell, North Carolina’s state treasurer, in December 2021. Stein, a Democrat who allowed the sale of nonprofit Mission Health to HCA Healthcare in 2019, and Folwell, a Republican, are widely regarded as potential rivals for future elected office.

“For many services, Mission Health charges insurers prices far higher than the state-wide average price for the same service,” Walters’ letter said. “Unsurprisingly, these costs are passed onto consumers.”

Walters continued, “Complaints note that, at the same time Mission Health charges high prices, Mission Health is enjoying significant profits while the quality of care at Mission Health facilities declines.”

Walters’ letter indicated it was in response to a letter Lowe wrote to the attorney general’s office in July 2021, in which Lowe argued that Mission Health’s chronic understaffing was the result of a “challenging labor market” and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“However,” Walters wrote, “health care systems across the state face these same issues without resulting in the same high number of complaints to this office.”

Lowe’s March 30 letter to the assistant attorney general promised “a more fulsome response on certain topics will follow,” but noted that “the amount a patient pays for the care she receives is impacted by a variety of factors” including insurance coverage, out of pocket costs, “and other factors not set by the prices negotiated between MHS and the insurer.”

Lowe noted that “MHS is compliant with all federal regulations regarding price transparency,” and that commercial insurance contracts contain terms negotiated at length between “highly sophisticated parties.”

As for chronic under-staffing, cleanliness, and long wait times at Mission hospitals, Lowe wrote that Mission Health “is taking a number of concerted steps to address staffing challenges.”

“Further, MHS has received high marks on recent surveys and inspections related to patient safety and quality,” Lowe wrote. — Peter H. Lewis

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Cawthorn’s 52-Point Plan For 2022 GOP House Majority

March 19, 2022Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn of western NC // YouTube screenshot

Once again bucking the Republican leadership, U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-western North Carolina) has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to outline his legislative “freedom agenda” if he is re-elected in November and if Republicans regain control of Congress.

Cawthorn’s resolution — which so far has failed to attract any co-sponsors, and reportedly earned a rebuke from House GOP leaders — enumerates the 26-year-old congressman’s more than 50 priorities including ending Social Security entitlements, abolishing the federal income tax, abolishing the Department of Education, allowing concealed carry of weapons in every state, outlawing abortion, completing the southern border wall, censuring Anthony Fauci, resuming work on the Keystone pipeline, ending Obamacare, enacting a Parental Bill of Rights, promoting “patriotic civil engagement,” and downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency along with the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Labor, and Transportation.

Cawthorn’s House Resolution 937, titled “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to preserve liberty by operating within the enumerated powers in the Constitution of the United States and its founding principles,” follows his equally successful House Resolution 732, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that . . . nothing in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence is meant to be construed as racist or harmful.”

Below are Cawthorn’s 52 “duties of the Federal Government,” slightly edited for brevity. — Peter Lewis

Reduce government spending by one-third by 2031.
Enact a balanced budget amendment.
Turnaround the mismanagement of Social Security … by incentivizing people to work and get off entitlement programs.
Abolish the income tax.
Expand Opportunity Zones.
Demand instant COVID compensation from Communist China.
Incentivizing domestic manufacturing and agriculture production.
Abolish the Department of Education.
Establish English as the official language of the United States.
Downsize the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Labor, and Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Cut all outrageous Federal waste and spending and reallocate funds to nonprofits fighting the opioid epidemic, promoting veterans’ entrepreneurship, and promoting patriotic civil engagement.
Recognize the past abuse that Directors of three letter agencies have committed.
Impose term limits on Members of Congress (six terms for House, two terms for Senate).
Impose term limits on Federal career employees.
Ensure … that there is only one subject matter per one bill.
Protect employer-sponsored insurance from single-payer, government-run health care schemes.
Protect patients with preexisting conditions.
Require price transparency.
Provide generous subsidies, offset by cuts to government waste, for individuals to shop for their own health insurance and choose their own doctors.
Preserve health care freedom and choice and expand health savings accounts.
End monopolies in health care and among hospitals by unleashing individual choice and free market competition.
Guarantee health care choice for America’s veterans.
Expand the use and availability of telemedicine.
Federal funding [for education] should follow the student to whichever education institution the student attends [including private religious schools].
Prevent taxpayer dollars from funding anti-American critical race theory.
Document decades of failed progressive governance in our Nation’s urban centers.
Prevent Federal funding for cities that have defunded their police and law enforcement.
Recognize that life begins at conception.
Enact a parental bill of rights.
Make “political affiliation” protected from workplace discrimination.
Protect Americans from violence by recognizing that every American who can legally own a firearm has the ability to carry and conceal firearms in every State without a permit.
Abolish the National Firearms Act of 1934.
Expedite permits for modular nuclear reactors.
Incorporate underused hydropower into our energy grid.
Invest in development of breakthrough technologies using an “all of the above energy” strategy.
Immediately resume work on the Keystone pipeline.
Immediately withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Demand that China dismantle concentration camps, grant free speech rights to religious and political minorities, and offer a formal apology for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Impose tariffs on Chinese goods.
Reform the National Environmental Policy Act.
Protect the United States’ access to critical minerals.
Complete President Trump’s border wall.
Prohibit federal funding to sanctuary cities.
Fight human trafficking.
Formally recognize Taiwan independence.
Use money generated from downsizing government to repair bridges, update highway system, and deliver rural broadband access.
Break up big tech monopolies.
Deregulate cryptocurrencies and incentivize blockchain innovation.
Rebuild America’s military.
Immediately return war making powers to Congress.
Invest in cyber, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, and the Space Force.
Prioritize getting our veterans back to work through fellowship programs.

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Ex-Trump Lawyer Powell Is Selling Her Asheville Home

March 17, 2022Read more

Sidney Powell’s house in Biltmore Forest

Sidney Powell, an attorney and former federal prosecutor best known for her promotion of conspiracy theories and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, is selling her home in Biltmore Forest.

Real estate listings show that Powell’s 3,400-square-foot ranch house at 9 Forest Road,

Sidney Powell’s house in Biltmore Forest

Real estate listings show that Powell’s 3,400-square-foot ranch house at 9 Forest Road, which her company Fawkes Partners purchased in 2007 for $750,000, is currently under contract. The asking price is $1.55 million.

Powell joined the legal team of then-President Donald Trump in 2020 by falsely alleging that the election was stolen from Trump by a vast global conspiracy involving China, Venezuela, and secret algorithms inside machines made by Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems. She vowed to “release the Kraken” to overturn the results.

“President Trump won by a landslide,” she falsely claimed. “We are going to prove it, and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.”

She was later permanently banned from Twitter for promoting the bizarre claims of QAnon, a political group that believes a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles operating a global child sex-trafficking ring conspired against Trump during his term in office.

After the election Powell raised more than $14 million by promising that her nonprofit organization, Defend the Republic, would restore Trump to the presidency, according to The Washington Post. In August 2021 she paid $1.2 million in cash to buy a house in Alexandria, Va., Politico reported.

Powell did not immediately respond to a question from Asheville Watchdog about her plans to keep an Asheville residence. — Peter Lewis

Sidney Powell // Photo by sidneypowell.com

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Sports News: Tourists Change Leagues, Sort Of

March 16, 2022Read more

Score it an error: Major League Baseball this week restored the historic names for each of the minor leagues, after meddling with the names last season. After playing last season in the High-A East League, the hometown Asheville Tourists will open the 2022 season in the South Atlantic League.

Final Standings,

Final Standings, 2021

Also last season, the Tourists changed their parent club affiliation to the Houston Astros, a decision that MLB failed to rectify this season.

The Tourists home opener is April 12 versus the Greenville Drive. — Peter Lewis

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Mission Named One of Healthgrades’s “America’s 50 Best Hospitals”

February 9, 2022Read more

Mission Hospital in Asheville is one of the top 50 “Best Hospitals” in the United States for clinical excellence, as measured by the consumer ratings group Healthgrades, Mission Hospital announced today.

Healthgrades analyzed the clinical performance of nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide across more than 31 of the most common procedures and conditions,

Healthgrades analyzed the clinical performance of nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide across more than 31 of the most common procedures and conditions, and Mission Hospital was the only hospital in North Carolina to get the “50 Best” award, Mission said.

It is the seventh straight year Healthgrades has awarded Mission the “America’s 50 Best Hospitals Award.”

“Healthgrades does not take into consideration perception or popularity in analyzing and rating hospitals,” the Mission news release said. Healthgrades ratings are based on the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data for 2018 through 2020 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only. Patient reviews and pricing are not included in the evaluations.

Healthgrades is published by Red Ventures, a media and marketing company based in Indian Land, South Carolina, that also publishes Lonely Planet travel guides, Chowhound, and TV Guide, and owns GameSpot, Giant Bomb, and The Points Guy.

“We are so proud of the team at Mission Hospital and grateful to Healthgrades for recognizing their hard work and exceptional care,” said Chad Patrick, CEO of Mission Hospital. — Peter Lewis

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He’s Out! Asheville native Joe West Retires From MLB

February 5, 2022Read more

Joe West, the all-time leader in Major League Baseball games umpired, announced his retirement this week after calling a record 5,460 regular-season games. Born in Asheville 69 years ago, and known as “Country Joe,” West called his last game Oct. 6, 2021, behind home plate in the National League wild-card game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St.

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Dogwood Makes It Official: Susan Mims is New CEO

January 31, 2022Read more

Dogwood Health Trust named Dr. Susan Mims chief executive officer of the $2 billion Asheville-based foundation, removing the “interim” title she has held since December 2020.

Created with the net proceeds from the 2019 sale of nonprofit Mission Health, Dogwood had been without a titular CEO since the abrupt and as yet unexplained departure of Antony Chiang in September 2020.

Dogwood Health Trust named Dr. Susan Mims chief executive officer of the $2 billion Asheville-based foundation, removing the “interim” title she has held since December 2020.

In announcing the decision, Dogwood said the search evaluated “more than 400 potential prospects,” eventually narrowing the field to 16 candidates, and then to four finalists, before concluding that that the best leader was already in the job.

“Over the past year, Dr. Mims has been an excellent leader for Dogwood and has demonstrated her commitment to dramatically improve the health and well being of all people and communities of Western North Carolina,” Casey Cooper, co-chair of Dogwood’s CEO search committee, said in a statement.

Before joining Dogwood, Dr. Mims, a physician, was chairperson of the Department of Community and Public Health at UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC, the Asheville-based Mountain Area Health Education Center. Before that she was a vice president at Mission Health, and former CEO of Mission Children’s Hospital. — Peter Lewis

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Dogwood Executive Departs; CEO Search Continues

January 4, 2022Read more

William Buster // Dogwood Health Trust

William Buster, senior vice president at the Dogwood Health Trust in Asheville, has been named chief executive officer of the $1.3 billion New Hanover Community Endowment Inc. in Wilmington, NC.

Just as the Dogwood Health Trust arose from the $1.5 billion sale of Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare,

William Buster // Dogwood Health Trust

William Buster, senior vice president at the Dogwood Health Trust in Asheville, has been named chief executive officer of the $1.3 billion New Hanover Community Endowment Inc. in Wilmington, NC.

Just as the Dogwood Health Trust arose from the $1.5 billion sale of Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare, the New Hanover Community Endowment was formed from the sale of the previously county-owned New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health. Dogwood Health and the New Hanover Community Endowment each instantly became two of the largest healthcare endowments, per capita, in the United States.

Buster joined the Dogwood Trust’s Impact Team, responsible for grant-making and program-related investment activity, in November 2020. His departure after 14 months comes as Dogwood continues its search for a permanent CEO. Susan Mims, a physician and former member of the senior leadership team at Mission Hospital, has held the title of Interim CEO since the abrupt and as-yet unexplained departure of Antony Chiang as CEO after less than a year at Dogwood.

Dogwood announced its search for a new permanent CEO in October, with plans to announce the new leader “in early 2022.” Buster will assume his new job at the New Hanover Endowment in March. — Peter Lewis

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Mission Hospital Gets an “A” In Latest Safety Grading

November 10, 2021Read more

Mission Hospital in Asheville received an “A” grade in the latest national rating of hospitals for its performance in preventing medical errors and harms to patients, in what its chief medical officer called “a tribute and credit to all the people on this team who have been working so hard through all the challenges we’ve faced during the pandemic.”

And for the eighth straight time, AdventHealth Hendersonville also received an “A” grade from the Leapfrog Group, an independent, nonprofit organization that measures patient safety and assigns a letter grade to hospitals based on how well they prevent medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections that kill or harm patients.

But Pardee Memorial Hospital in Hendersonville slipped to a “B” rating in the Leapfrog Fall 2021 ratings, which were announced today. Pardee had scored “A” the previous three gradings.

Also receiving “B” grades in the Fall 2021 period, released Nov. 10, were Haywood Regional Medical Center in Clyde, Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion, Rutherford Regional Medical Center in Rutherfordton, and Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva.

Nationwide, 32 percent of all hospitals reviewed by Leapfrog received “A” grades, and 26 percent got “B” grades. And among all states, North Carolina ranked No. 2 nationally for the highest percentage of “A” hospitals.

Mission Health, owned by HCA Healthcare of Nashville, is by far the biggest hospital in Western North Carolina and the region’s only Level II trauma center. It was downgraded to a “B” in the Spring 2021 Leapfrog safety ratings before rebounding in the current period. Grades are updated twice yearly.

“Compassionate care and safety are our highest priorities at Mission Hospital and I am incredibly proud of our team and their commitment to the patients we are privileged to care for,” Chad Patrick, CEO, Mission Hospital, said in a prepared statement. “The entire team’s dedication to the highest level of care for our patients — especially during the challenges of a pandemic — is proven with this safety grade A from Leapfrog.”

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades surveyed 2,901 hospitals nationwide and assigned them point scores on more than 30 categories, including infections, surgical problems, safety problems, practices to prevent errors, and medical staff.

Jay Kirby, chief executive of Pardee, asked to comment on his hospital’s downgrade, told The Watchdog: “Our focus is, and always will be, to provide exceptional care to our patients. A rating score from Leapfrog in no way diminishes our commitment to safety across our organization. Nor does it take away from the very hard work and determination exhibited by our team throughout this past year and the six-month review period for this particular rating. “

“I am very proud of the work we’ve accomplished, the lives we have saved, and the deaths prevented as a result of our efforts,” Kirby said.

Dr. William Hathaway, Mission’s chief medical officer, told Asheville Watchdog that the hospital’s success in the latest scoring came in part from improved information management. In particular, he cited Patient Safety Indicator 90, a composite measure that tracks patient safety (or “avoidance of harm”) during the delivery of health care.

Mission Hospital received an “above average” positive score for having “enough qualified nurses” to care for patients. The hospital has been criticized repeatedly by National Nurses United, the labor union representing registered nurses at Mission, for what the union calls unsafe levels of staffing.

Mission was scored “below average” for “communication with doctors,” “communication with nurses,” and “responsiveness of hospital staff.” — Peter Lewis

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Stein joins effort to halt hospital merger … in New Jersey

November 9, 2021Read more

NC Attorney General Josh Stein

Nov. 9 — North Carolina Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, who approved the 2019 sale of nonprofit Mission Health System to for-profit HCA Healthcare, giving HCA a virtual monopoly on healthcare in Western North Carolina, today signed a legal brief in support of a district court’s ruling that halted the merger of two hospital systems in New Jersey.

Stein joined 24 other state attorneys general in filing the amicus brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, arguing that hospitals facing less competition have the ability to charge higher prices without providing improvements to the efficiency or quality of care.

Asked by Asheville Watchdog to comment on why he entered the out-of-state legal fray over the proposed merger of Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood Healthcare Foundation, his office responded:

“North Carolina, like other states across the country, has seen a wave of hospital consolidations over the past few years. While our office has a limited role in reviewing transactions related to consolidation, we are concerned about what they mean for North Carolinians’ health care.”

“Filing this brief is part of our continued efforts to do everything in our power to make sure that North Carolinians have access to affordable, quality health care, especially in rural and underserved areas in our state,” Stein’s statement to The Watchdog read.

But in the brief, Stein joined the other attorneys general in writing: “Mergers that substantially increase provider market share in local markets lead to increased healthcare costs in local communities and raise the overall cost of healthcare within the States . . . without any substantial improvements in quality for consumers.”

The $1.5 billion purchase of the six-hospital Mission Health System gave HCA a monopoly on healthcare in Western North Carolina. HCA raised prices by 10 percent six months after the sale, and in 2020 Mission Hospital ranked second among HCA’s 183 hospitals for the highest net patient revenues. The hospital’s safety ratings declined in the most recent ratings period.

Stein’s office has received hundreds of complaints from citizens and health care providers about rising costs and declining quality of care at Mission Hospital since he approved the sale to HCA. Stein has said he is “very concerned” about the reports.

In an interview with Asheville Watchdog in late August, Stein said that state law limited his ability to halt the sale of the Mission system to HCA despite “conflicts” uncovered by his investigation of the proposed transaction. Stein has not responded to The Watchdog’s questions about the nature of the conflicts his investigators reported finding.

Because of the law’s restrictions, Stein said in August, he would have no choice but to make the same ruling today as he did in 2019, when the 20 members of Mission Health’s volunteer board of trustees voted unanimously to sell to HCA, despite considering only one other bid. — Peter Lewis

[This post was updated to include a response from the attorney general’s office.]

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Dogwood Trust Is Searching For New Chief Executive

October 4, 2021Read more

Susan Mims, MD

[UPDATED Oct. 29] Dogwood Health Trust is looking for a “seasoned, collaborative and humble executive” to be chief executive officer of the $2 billion private nonprofit healthcare foundation, Dogwood announced Oct. 4. The Asheville-based trust is currently led by Interim CEO Susan Mims.

Dogwood announced plans to interview finalists for the position in December and to select a permanent replacement by early next year.

Susan Mims, MD

Dogwood announced plans to interview finalists for the position in December and to select a permanent replacement by early next year. Asked if Sims was a candidate for the permanent CEO position, a Dogwood spokeswoman said, “Out of respect for the confidentiality of all candidates, Dogwood Health Trust will not make that information public.”

Mims, a physician and public health expert, is a former member of Mission Hospital’s leadership team. She was appointed Dogwood’s interim CEO in October 2020 to replace Antony Chiang, who abruptly left the trust in September 2020, less than a year after he was hired with great fanfare and minutes before he was scheduled to speak at a news conference in Asheville.

In the year since Chiang’s departure, no one on Dogwood’s leadership team has responded to Asheville Watchdog’s repeated questions about Chiang’s sudden departure, and Chiang has not responded to requests for comment.

The Dogwood board selected Chiang from among 125 candidates to become Dogwood’s first chief executive. Witt Kieffer, the Massachusetts-based executive search firm that handled Chiang’s hiring, will once again conduct the search for the next CEO.

The Dogwood Trust was created with proceeds from the sale of the Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare in 2019. The Trust’s mission is to “dramatically improve the health and well-being of all people and communities across 18 counties and the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina.”

In general, a private foundation must distribute 5 percent of its net assets each year to maintain tax-exempt status. Claiming $2 billion in assets this year suggests that Dogwood intends to distribute at least $100 million a year to support housing, education, economic opportunity, and health and wellness in the region. — Peter Lewis

[This news item was updated and corrected Oct. 29 to remove an erroneous assertion that Susan Mims planned to step down when a permanent replacement is chosen. The Watchdog regrets the error.]

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Developers Withdraw Charlotte Street Request

September 17, 2021Read more

After nearly a year of intense opposition from community activists, the developers of the proposed 101 Charlotte Street development formally withdrew their application to the City of Asheville for special permission to exceed current zoning restrictions along the near-northside Asheville corridor.

The out-of-state developer, RCG of Massachusetts, and its local landowner partner,

The out-of-state developer, RCG of Massachusetts, and its local landowner partner, Killian Chestnut Residential Properties, planned to tear down and replace a dozen century-old homes with a new apartment complex, parking garage, retail space, office space, condominiums and rowhouses on the nearly seven-acre 100-block of Charlotte Street.

On Friday, the development team withdrew its request for a variance from the city that would have allowed buildings along Charlotte Street to be five stories tall, significantly taller than current zoning regulations allow. The withdrawal means that, at least for now, development will proceed under current zoning guidelines intended to prevent over-development.

Opponents, including the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County (PSABC) and the Charlotte Street Neighborhood Association, cheered the news, but said their fight to save the existing homes was not over.

“While we are very pleased that the developers are no longer moving forward with the project, the future of this block remains uncertain and there are a number of complicated zoning issues at play,” the PSABC wrote on Facebook. “We will continue to monitor the situation and to encourage the developers to work with us and the community towards a project we can all support.” — Peter Lewis

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Not-so-happy Labor Day: Study ranks North Carolina “worst” for working women

September 6, 2021Read more

For the second straight year, North Carolina ranks last overall in the United States for meeting the needs of working families, and especially in meeting the needs of working women, according to an annual study by Oxfam, the international anti-poverty organization.

The study, called the “Best and Worst States to Work in America 2021,” found that North Carolina “provides no support for workers’ rights to organize,

The study, called the “Best and Worst States to Work in America 2021,” found that North Carolina “provides no support for workers’ rights to organize, does not exceed the federal minimum wage, and has very few worker protection policies.” In ranking North Carolina at the bottom for working women, Oxfam cited the lack of a mandate for paid leave, no accommodation for pregnancy, and no protection against sexual harassment.

Oregon topped the list of “best places to work,” which surveyed working conditions in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Unlike many other states, North Carolina has not raised its minimum wage beyond the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a level not changed since 2009, or the federal minimum tipped wage of $2.13 an hour, which has not increased in 30 years. In theory, employers of tipped wage earners are legally obligated to ensure that tipped employees earn at least the state minimum wage if tips fall short. However, the Oxfam report said, enforcement of this mandate is “paltry at best.”

Notably, women make up 69 percent of the tipped minimum wage workforce, and 36 percent of them are mothers, half of whom are single mothers, according to the report.

Asheville-based nonprofit Just Economics, which studies wage and cost of living issues in western North Carolina, put the 2021 “living wage” for the Asheville metro area at $17.30 an hour. The figure is calculated using the Universal Living Wage Formula, which is based on a 40-hour work week, the Fair Market Rent for Asheville determined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and another HUD guideline that no more than 30 percent of a person’s gross monthly income should be spent on housing.

HUD determined that the Fair Market Rent for a safe apartment in Asheville is $1,255 including utilities for a two-bedroom apartment. The statewide average for North Carolina is $919.

The 2019 Bowen Report on housing needs for the City of Asheville found that 46.8% of renters were cost burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing, and 19.4 percent were severely cost burdened, paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing. And that report was completed before the latest surge in Asheville housing prices.

In a meeting Sept. 2, the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee noted that no houses were for sale in Asheville for less than $275,000. In August 2021, the real estate company Redfin reported, Asheville home prices were up 22.1 percent compared to last year, selling for a median price of $428,000. — Barbara Durr

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Cawthorn targeted by panel investigating Jan. 6 attack

September 5, 2021Read more

[Sept. 5] Western North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn is among the Republican members of Congress whose records are being targeted by the special committee investigating the fatal Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, The New York Times is reporting.

The committee has asked technology firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress,

The committee has asked technology firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress, including Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the newspaper reported.

“These are the individuals who have been publicly supportive of Jan. 6 and the people who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6,” Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the panel’s chairman, told The Times.

“We need to find out exactly what their level of participation in this event was,” he said. “If you helped raise money, if you provided misinformation to people, if you served on a planning committee — whatever your role in Jan. 6, I think the public has a right to know.”

Cawthorn rallied the crowd at a pro-Trump protest just before the attack on the Capitol. During the attack, while hiding in the basement, he called a right-wing radio show to say the rioters were “paid by the Democratic machine” and that he had carried loaded weapons into the Capitol.

At a recent GOP meeting in Macon County, Cawthorn said people arrested for their roles in the attack are “political prisoners” and warned of “bloodshed” over a “rigged” American election system. Among a number of provocative and misleading statements at the Macon rally, Cawthorn said in response to a question that “we are actively working on” plans for another similar protest in Washington. — Sally Kestin

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Mission Nurses’ Union Calls for Public Protest, Citing Patient Safety

September 1, 2021Read more

[Sept. 1] The labor union representing registered nurses at Mission Hospital said nurses will stage a protest Thursday morning to call attention what it called “patient safety and unsafe working conditions” at Asheville’s flagship hospital system.

Among other complaints, the National Nurses Organizing Committee of National Nurses United asserted that HCA Healthcare-owned Mission Hospital scheduled symptomatic,

Among other complaints, the National Nurses Organizing Committee of National Nurses United asserted that HCA Healthcare-owned Mission Hospital scheduled symptomatic, COVID-positive nurses to work at the hospital, and failed to provide nurses with adequate masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment.

In a statement, Hannah Drummond, a registered nurse in Mission’s emergency department, said hospital administrators have ignored “months” of staff complaints about safety standards, including staffing. “We have a duty to the Asheville community to provide optimal care, and we will continue our advocacy until Mission is a safe place for our patients,” she said.

“We’re disappointed that the labor union would attempt to pull people away from patient care for a rally during COVID and not follow the mutually agreed upon process that they requested as recently as July,” JC Sadler, Vice President for Communications and Community Strategy at the North Carolina Division of HCA Healthcare, said when asked by Asheville Watchdog for a response to the union’s statement. “Caring for our patients and employees safely is our priority. We have ample PPE for our colleagues, require universal masking, and follow CDC protocols for returning employees to work.”

The protest is scheduled for 8 a.m. Sept. 2 at the corner of Biltmore Avenue and Hospital Drive. — P.L.

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Pardee Hospital Requires All Staff to be Vaccinated

August 23, 2021Read more

Pardee UNC Health Care in Hendersonville on Monday became the first hospital in western North Carolina to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for all staff, according to a memo sent Aug. 23 to employees by the hospital’s president. The announcement came within hours of formal approval of the Pfizer vaccine by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Despite a local surge in COVID cases related to the highly contagious delta variant of the virus, vaccinations remained voluntary on Monday for healthcare workers at Mission Hospital in Asheville and AdventHealth Hendersonville. The vast majority of COVID infections, hospitalizations, and deaths nationwide are among unvaccinated people.

James M. Kirby II, president and CEO of Pardee, set a Nov. 12 deadline for all workers to be vaccinated, but his memo did not specify the consequences for noncompliance. “As with the flu vaccine, we will review requests for a medical or religious exemption to this requirement,” he wrote. “Full policy details will be shared by the end of this week.”

Hospitals nationwide are struggling with staffing shortages, especially among nurses and nursing assistants, and hospital administrators elsewhere have said they fear staff will quit if required to get vaccinated.

“We hope that the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine encourages those who were previously hesitant to decide to get the vaccine,” said Nancy Lindell, director of public and media relations at HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division-Mission Health. “Our infectious disease experts as well as those at the CDC are strongly encouraging vaccination as a critical step to protect individuals from the virus, but at this time our colleagues are not required to be vaccinated for COVID-19.”

“AdventHealth has not mandated vaccines for our team members,” Victoria Dunkle, director of communications and public relations at AdventHealth Hendersonville, told The Watchdog on Monday. “Based on scientific evidence, COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19,” she said. — P.L.

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Local Residents Sue HCA, Alleging Overcharging at Mission Hospital

August 10, 2021Read more

Since being acquired by the giant for-profit hospital chain HCA Healthcare, Mission Health and its Mission Hospital flagship have become the most expensive hospital system in North Carolina for many procedures, with prices often double the state average, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday against HCA Healthcare and its Mission Health subsidiary in Asheville.

The 87-page lawsuit, filed in Superior Court in Buncombe County by a group of local residents, alleges that Nashville-based HCA illegally used its effective monopoly market power in the region to raise prices while reducing the quality of care at the six hospitals and multiple clinics it operates in Western North Carolina, harming doctors and consumers.

“Once we have been served with the lawsuit, we will respond appropriately through the legal process,” Nancy Lindell, division director for public and media relations for HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division and Mission Health, said in a statement. “Mission Health is committed to the health and well-being of every person who comes to us for care, and we are proud of our dedicated hospital teams that are facing the many challenges of this pandemic and the exceptional care they have provided to our patients.”

Many of the allegations against HCA and Mission Health were first reported by Asheville Watchdog.

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Update: Covid cases spike among younger, unvaccinated

July 21, 2021Read more

The Delta variant of the SARS-COVID-19 virus is spreading “exponentially,” doubling since last week, and about 92 percent of all new cases in Buncombe County are among individuals who are not fully vaccinated, Buncombe County Public Health Director Stacie Saunders said Wednesday. The average age of newly infected individuals is 39, Saunders said.

Even so,

Even so, Gov. Roy Cooper said his executive order mandating facial masks at schools, camps, and child care facilities will expire next week and will not be renewed. However, Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday she and Cooper “strongly recommend” masks for all students, teachers, and staff inside elementary and middle school facilities even if adults or students 12 and older have been fully vaccinated.

Three-fourths of North Carolina’s children 12 and older have not been vaccinated, according to Cohen and Cooper, leaving most schools vulnerable to the Delta variant of COVID-19. — P.L.

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COVID-19 cases rise sharply a month before schools open

July 20, 2021Read more

New COVID-19 cases are rising sharply in Buncombe County in the past two weeks, but public schools in Asheville and Buncombe County will resume in-person classes a month from now without requiring students, faculty or staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Most of the average 18 new cases a day — triple the number of early July but far fewer than at the height of the pandemic in January —are among people who have not been vaccinated for the coronavirus,

All children age 12 and older are eligible for free COVID-19 vaccinations — adults too — and Asheville and Buncombe County schools hosted free immunization clinics this summer. But COVID-19 vaccinations are voluntary, and any decision to make them mandatory for students, faculty, and staff ahead of the scheduled Aug. 23 opening would have to come from the state health department and the Department of Public Instruction, school officials said.

Health officials say current vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, but only 51 percent of Buncombe County adults are fully vaccinated, according to figures updated Tuesday by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

As of Tuesday, “Asheville City Schools is NOT requiring our students or staff to receive a COVID-19 vaccine prior to the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” Ashley-Michelle Thublin, the system’s executive director of communications, told Asheville Watchdog via email.

“We will return to school in person, five days a week in August,” Stacia Harris, director of communications for Buncombe County Schools, emailed The Watchdog, adding, “BCS is not requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students or staff to begin school in August.”

All students will still be required to have been vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, rubella, mumps, flu, chickenpox, hepatitis B, and meningitis. By state law, school principals are required to deny admittance to any student who has not been vaccinated for these diseases.

One-hundred years ago, before an effective vaccine against diphtheria was developed, the disease killed 1,864 North Carolinians in the period 1920-24. The North Carolina General Assembly made the diphtheria vaccine mandatory for schoolchildren in 1939. The disease is now rare.

North Carolina was the first state to make a polio vaccine mandatory for schoolchildren, in 1959. A decade earlier, in 1948, polio killed 143 children and adults in the state and crippled thousands more. Today the disease is virtually eliminated. — P.L.

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Cawthorn opposes removing statues of white supremacists

June 30, 2021Read more

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC11) voted by proxy Tuesday against a House bill to remove statues of white supremacists and pro-slavery Confederate sympathizers from the halls of Congress. The resolution passed with bipartisan support, 285 to 120, with three North Carolina Republicans joining the Democrats in voting to replace the statues.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

The bill now goes to the Senate. A similar resolution passed the House last year, 305-113, but then-majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did not allow it to come up for a Senate vote.

The bill opposed by Cawthorn calls for the removal of “all Confederate statues and Confederate busts from any area of the United States Capitol which is accessible to the public.” It also specifically calls for removing a statue honoring former North Carolina Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock, who was a key figure in fomenting the Wilmington massacre of 1898, in which a mob of some 2,000 whites attacked and killed at least 60 and possibly more than 300 Black residents.

Charles B. Aycock

As governor, Aycock wrote that North Carolina had “solved the negro problem” by “as far as possible under the Fifteenth Amendment to disfranchise him.” “He is unfit to vote,” Aycock wrote.

In 2018 the state of North Carolina voted to replace the Aycock statue — on display in the Crypt of the U.S. Capitol — with one of the Rev. Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist from Montreat, who died earlier that year, but the replacement has not yet happened. Each state has two statues in the Capitol’s National Statuary collection; North Carolina’s other statue is of Zebulon B. Vance, a Confederate officer, two-time governor, U.S. senator, slaveholder, and avowed white supremacist whose monument in downtown Asheville was demolished this year.

The bill Cawthorn opposed also specifically calls for replacing a bust honoring former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, a white supremacist who delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, with one of Thurgood Marshall, the court’s first African-American justice and a champion of the civil rights movement.

In Scott, Taney wrote that Blacks were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race.” His landmark decision argued that “any person descended from Africans,” whether enslaved or free, would never be eligible for citizenship in the United States and that the federal government had no right to forbid or abolish slavery in expansion states.

Asheville Watchdog requested comment from Cawthorn’s office about his opposition to removing the statues and busts, but has not yet received a response. Cawthorn was traveling to Texas for a media event at the Mexican border with former President Donald Trump.

But in an interview with The Washington Examiner a year ago, then-candidate Cawthorn spoke in favor of removing public monuments to Confederate leaders. “Gen. Lee was a great man, an incredible man,” Cawthorn told the newspaper, “but I think he was on the wrong side of history, and I don’t think we should romanticize the side of history he was on.” — P.L.

[Editor’s note: This story was updated to note that because he was traveling, Rep. Cawthorn instructed his “nay” vote to be cast by his proxy, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX).]

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City must pay legal fees to local media, judge rules

June 24, 2021Read more

The city of Asheville must pay nearly $4,200 in legal fees to a coalition of local media organizations that sued the city for trying to bar news reporters from a public meeting in March. The coalition, including Asheville Watchdog, The Asheville Citizen Times, Mountain Xpress, Blue Ridge Public Radio, and Carolina Public Press, successfully sued the city, citing North Carolina’s open meetings law, and on Tuesday Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Steven Warren ruled that the city must pay the coalition’s legal fees.

“We are grateful that Judge Warren apparently agreed that it was important not only for the city of Asheville to comply with the open meetings law but to be accountable when they tried to sidestep it,” said Amanda Warren, the lawyer who represented the local media coalition. “A different ruling could have encouraged public bodies and public agencies to flout the law with little consequence.”

Brad R. Branham, Asheville’s city attorney, told Mountain Xpress that he disagreed with Judge Warren’s rulings and that “it is difficult to say that this particular ruling would have any bearing on Council meetings moving forward.” He declined to say how much the city spent on its legal defense.

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Urban Renewal Impact website to be launched June 24

June 22, 2021Read more

A new website that allows residents to tell their stories about the impact of the urban renewal program that uprooted the Black community from its traditional neighborhoods in Asheville will be launched Thursday, part of the first phase of city’s plan to implement its July 2020 resolution to provide reparations to the Black community.

The website, “Urban Renewal Impact,” was created by Priscilla Ndiaye Robinson, a former Southside resident and researcher on urban renewal. Robinson said her work, which was supported by funding in 2021 from the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County, is expected to be “an important resource in the truth-and-reconciliation conversations on reparations in Asheville.”

A multiyear digital collaboration with local citizens and experts, the website focuses on urban renewal programs in the 1950s to 1980s that displaced Black communities from such areas as Valley Street (now South Charlotte St.) and Southside (also called East Riverside in the urban renewal program). (See Asheville Watchdog’s stories on reparations here and Black home ownership here.)

Robinson unveils the website on in the evening of June 24th. It can be accessed through this link: http://urbanrenewalimpact.org/ after the 7 p.m. launch. — B.D.

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Nurses to picket Mission Hospital, citing concerns about safety

June 14, 2021Read more

The labor union representing Mission Hospital nurses said members will picket two hospital facilities in Asheville June 15 to highlight concerns about under-staffing that, they contend, has affected the safety of patient care. The labor action is the latest in a growing fusillade of complaints about the safety and quality of patient care made to regulators and to Asheville Watchdog since for-profit HCA Healthcare took over nonprofit Mission Health in 2019.

In announcing the picket, National Nurses Organizing Committee North Carolina said Mission and St. Joseph hospitals — both owned and operated by HCA — need to make improvements to retain experienced registered nurses (RNs) and recruit new ones. Working conditions at Mission make it hard to attract new recruits, the union committee said.

Asked to comment on the union’s statement, Nancy Lindell, Director of Public and Media Relations for HCA Healthcare North Carolina Division and Mission Health, said in an emailed statement: “Since mid-February Mission Hospital has held roughly a dozen bargaining sessions with the union representatives and, in those sessions, the parties have reached more than 30 tentative agreements” on topics including health and safety.

“Despite this progress, we understand that this kind of picketing activity sometimes occurs when a union and an employer are engaged in negotiations for a contract, as we are with this union,” Lindell wrote. “This is merely a form of demonstration that the union is legally allowed to do. We want the public to be assured that Mission Hospital remains open and continues to provide the quality patient care that Mission Hospital has always provided.”

In calling for picketing, Mission nurses said hospital management has consistently failed to adhere to its own staffing standards, including nurse to patient ratios.

“Since HCA purchased our hospital in 2019, the management has cut corners on safe patient care by cutting support staff and violating their own nurse staffing grids,” said Shelby Runkles, a cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit RN at Mission. “With each additional patient, nurses are more prone to make mistakes and the risk of serious complications increases.”

Registered nurses at HCA Mission voted overwhelmingly last September to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-North Carolina, an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), and are negotiating with HCA Mission on a first collective bargaining agreement. The pickets are scheduled to be at Mission Hospital at 509 Biltmore Avenue and Mission’s St. Joseph Campus at 428 Biltmore Avenue from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. — Barbara Durr

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