Before he left Mission Hospital in January 2023, Dr. Scott Joslin did what he could to stop the exodus of his friends and colleagues, including 49 of his more than 60 team members.
“I wish I’d had a finger in the dike,” said Joslin, who until his departure was director of Mission’s hospitalist group, physicians who provide care exclusively for patients who stay at the hospital. “I was standing with my arms tied behind my back trying to stop it with my forehead most days.”
Joslin is one of more than 130 doctors who signed a public letter in October decrying HCA Healthcare for “gutting” the local healthcare system and is the physician most cited – 17 times – in a lawsuit against HCA filed by Democratic gubernatorial candidate and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein in December. The lawsuit alleged that HCA had not honored the commitments to care it made at the time of the purchase.
The for-profit company bought nonprofit Mission for $1.5 billion in 2019, immediately triggering waves of hospitalist departures, said Joslin, who joined the Asheville Veterans Affairs Medical Center a year ago after working at Mission for 23 years.
“I think you understand from talking to me how extremely painful this transition has been for me,” Joslin, 60, told Asheville Watchdog in an exclusive interview a week before his sworn affidavit in the Stein lawsuit became public record. “I never imagined that I would work anywhere other than with the group I was with at Mission. I had anticipated working out whatever years left I had as a physician there.”
In his interview and in the affidavit, Joslin described the personal and professional toll he says working at Mission exacted on physicians and patients. He had lost nearly 50 members of his team, he had worked seven days a week for two consecutive years, tenured members of hospital leadership were leaving for other organizations and, he said, HCA wasn’t listening to concerns raised by staff.
The Watchdog asked Mission Health spokesperson Nancy Lindell several questions about the departure of hospitalists at Mission Hospital in Asheville, including how many had left since 2018 and how many that hospital employed today, including those who are hired as contractors and those who are locum tenens, a medical industry term meaning temporary positions.
“As of today, Mission Health has approximately 20 more hospitalist providers serving on our medical staff than we did in February 2019,” Lindell said, referring not only to the Asheville campus but the Mission hospitals throughout Western North Carolina.
Joslin described an untenable professional situation at Mission.
“I was beginning to feel like I was on a sinking ship,” Joslin said. “I was trying to work my way out of the problem, and I finally realized, with feedback from my wife, that I was not going to be successful. If I continued down that road, it was going to cost me my own health.”
But the choice to leave, he said he’s realized, wasn’t on him.
“The fact that I’m not there anymore is not, I’ve come to understand, because I left Mission. It’s because Mission left me,” Joslin said.
Waves of departures
Joslin initially took a wait-and-see approach when he heard HCA was going to buy Mission, where he was head of the 60-physician hospitalist group.
Then he started losing team members.
“Three or four… of my members had before they joined us worked at facilities that were acquired by HCA,” Joslin said. “I guess the first red flag that went up was that they all gave notice that they were leaving in 90 days.”
Joslin said he urged them to give HCA a chance.
Their answer was definitive, Joslin said.
“We’re not going to work at an HCA facility again,” they told him.
A second wave of departures involved a group of hospitalists who had student loans the federal government was paying off because they had been practicing at a nonprofit hospital. Many were at least halfway through 10-year forgiveness programs, Joslin said, and were each still saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
Because Mission became a for-profit hospital under HCA, the loan forgiveness program would be no more. Eight doctors with loans stayed right until the sale went through, then left, Joslin said.
Four years later, despite high hopes that things would improve, Joslin himself gave notice. He started work at the VA in January. Twelve doctors from his team also have moved there, he said.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was … when Chris Flanders, who was the director for the emergency department physicians, notified me that he was stepping down,” Joslin said.
The Watchdog reached out to Flanders for comment but he did not respond.
Around the same time, former chief of staff Dr. Michael Frisch also left, which Joslin said was “devastating for me.”
After Flanders, who was on the Mission board of directors – which unanimously approved the Mission sale — left, Joslin said, he never really regained his equilibrium.
“An absolute red line”
Joslin’s departure is one of many since the sale, a trend that hasn’t stopped nearly five years later.
Some have gone to the VA, though that hospital’s spokesperson, Vance Janes, said he could not say how many.
“That isn’t something we track, and we do not have the manpower to review all the hires of hospitalists’ previous locations,” Janes said.
After breaking away from Mission, some doctors have become vocal about their experience there. They’ve signed letters, written editorials, and talked publicly, not only about their experience after the HCA takeover, but about what they think will happen if things don’t change.
Some, like Joslin, have become a significant part of Stein’s lawsuit, writing affidavits bolstering the attorney general’s argument that HCA broke promises to keep emergency and cancer care services fully functional.
In his eight-page affidavit, Joslin recounts bringing concerns to his supervisors about patients put at risk due to low staffing.
“That subsequently evolved into worsening problems with patients I had admitted from the ED that instead of being sent to a hold area or to the floor were actually returned to the ED’s waiting rooms,” Joslin wrote in his affidavit.
In his affidavit, he recounted seeing an 18-year-old stop breathing in an emergency waiting room, forcing their mother to find help. Another patient he admitted was disconnected from drips and returned without Joslin’s knowledge to the waiting room, where they lapsed into a coma.
“I am aware of numerous examples of patients with decompensated acute medical conditions who were returned to the waiting room,” Joslin wrote. “I brought those concerns formally to the chief medical officer (Dr. Anthony Spensieri) who concurred with me that this was an issue but did not take steps to prevent that from happening. I indicated that it was absolutely unacceptable for a patient that I had admitted to the hospital to be returned to the waiting room without further care pending bed availability. I was never notified about such cases. It was an absolute red line for me that this could not occur.”
The Watchdog reached out to Spensieri and Lindell with questions about this interaction.
Spensieri did not respond, and Lindell said, “Regarding the specific claims you referenced, we will respond as part of the normal legal process.”
Mission leadership’s unwillingness to listen to medical and nursing staff is frequently referenced in Stein’s lawsuit.
Nurses have felt so ignored that they’ve filed complaints with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and The Joint Commission, the nation’s largest hospital accreditation organization, prompting inspections and surveys late last year.
Unforced errors
Before the HCA purchase and the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shortly afterward, Joslin’s group was in charge of roughly 300 of the hospital’s nearly 800 beds each day, he said. The group saw about 40-70 new patients every 24 hours, about 95 percent of whom came from the emergency department.
The hospitalist group at Mission grew from nine physicians to more than 60 over the two decades Joslin worked there.
But when it started to bleed members as the HCA sale went through, Joslin said the hospitalist group recognized it had to replace the losses. The group went to HCA and suddenly were “faced with a contract where we were being paid less and needing to work more,” Joslin said.
Lindell did not respond to a question about what kind of contract Mission presented to the hospitalist group after some members started to leave and whether it would have required doctors to work more for less pay.
“That created challenges in being able to hire and retain new physicians,” Joslin said.
So the hospitalists went to TeamHealth, a medical staffing company owned by the Blackstone private equity firm that had provided service to numerous HCA hospitals. TeamHealth first brought in hospitalists to fill the gap left by exiting doctors and then helped supply temporary doctors when the shortages didn’t let up during the pandemic, Joslin said.
“In the early part of 2021, had we not been in partnership with TeamHealth, my group would have collapsed,” Joslin said. “TeamHealth totally came to bat for us and continued to do so throughout the time I was there.”
Despite TeamHealth’s aid, Joslin said, his and other departments continued to lose people quickly.
“There were a host of unforced errors that resulted in the emergency department staff being put under stresses that caused them to leave, that caused my members to leave, that caused most of our psychiatrists to leave, that imploded our hospice and palliative care service, that caused all of our otolaryngologists to resign from the medical staff, that put stress on the cardiology group, and the pulmonary and critical care group,” said Joslin.
A broken covenant
Joslin said he felt like HCA didn’t care that it was losing medical staff.
That attitude, he said, is born out in recent proposed revisions to Mission’s medical staff bylaws, which still apply to Joslin and many others who have left the hospital but still have practice privileges there.
One of those proposed revisions would have curbed doctors’ right to criticize HCA. The medical community rejected the proposed bylaws — which doctors say had issues even before the revisions — by a single vote last November.
Instead of tightening restrictions on doctors and creating high turnover rates — something the hospitalists group has been especially vulnerable to — Mission’s administration needs to take additional time to focus on nursing and medical staff morale, Joslin said.
“They can’t be treated as commodities that are disposable,” Joslin said. “Destroying the institutional memory of the hospital makes it harder to practice medicine effectively there, not better. There’s much more involved in the successful operation of the hospital than the bottom line and providing for the shareholders at HCA.”
He emphasized Mission’s woes are not the fault of doctors and nurses who, he said, are doing everything they possibly can to meet needs at the hospital.
But Joslin believes a once firm bond between Western North Carolina and Mission is broken, describing in his affidavit a previous “covenant” between the hospital and the community.
“[T]he community trusted we were doing everything we could to provide the best possible medical care for our patients at all times,” Joslin wrote in his affidavit. “That covenant eroded with the HCA transition. Now the community was in a position where they questioned what our motives were, what our priorities were, and were we really a facility that was set up, designed, and engineered to provide the best medical and surgical care in Western North Carolina, rather than being an entity that was only interested in providing profit for its shareholders.”
The community has “turned on the facility” and put doctors and nurses in a position where they want to provide the best care possible, but feel they can’t because of corporate constraints, Joslin wrote.
That’s why, Joslin said, so many have left.
“It’s hard to do sometimes, but you have to be able to adapt to the circumstances that you’re confronted with and you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror as well,” Joslin told The Watchdog.
“And if you’re going to work in the morning, knowing that you’re not making the contribution that you have to be able to make to feel like you’re working in good conscience, then you have to go.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Andrew R. Jones is a Watchdog investigative reporter. Email arjones@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service please visit avlwatchdog.org/donate.
A doctor, who was on the mission board of directors, which approved the sale unanimously resigned. I’m sure BOD is under tight NDA but the community and Western NC deserve answers from this body. So sad
Please elaborate. Is this what you are saying? A doctor that was on the board when the vote to bring HCA occurred and who voted for HCA to come in, retired immediately after the change? Why didn’t he/she vote differently? Was there undue /inappropriate pressure ?
Every time I read another story about HCA, my blood boils at their incessant greed and my heart breaks for the people who have no other option but to go there. Patients are not considered people but as cash-cows from which HCA makes money off of. It’s sickening that a once good hospital has been reduced to a place to avoid unless there’s no other option.
Amen Carol. You said it all. Just so we all know who we are dealing with, HCA stock rose Appx. 14% last year. Analysts rate them a “strong buy” with an expected increase to $288 per share this year. ( another 5 or so % increase). Sounds like a great opportunity for investors, if you do not mind people suffering and dying to make that $$$, i guess.
As many citizens of WNC are avoiding Mission (HCA) as the plague that it has become, the surrounding smaller Emergency Departments are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. As an RN in Triage, I hear, “I drove an extra hour because I won’t go to Mission”. Unfortunately, this seriously overcrowds the Emergency Departments that are NOT located in Buncombe County.
Excellent point Gale. Thank you for bringing this up.
Carol, you summed it up perfectly.
I had a minor op recently and felt a huge twinge of anxiety when I thought it was going to be done at Mission. As it turned out the surgeon who performed it had either lost or dropped his privileges at Mission and it was all done successfully at Advent.
The very idea of ‘for profit’ healthcare providers and insurance runs afoul of reality. Their argument is that they can take the same influx of money, skim a large portion off in profits, yet provide the same level of care but with significantly decreased funding. Anyone who thinks that is even remotely possible is not thinking clearly.
It is a scam. It has always been a scam.
HCA is a house of cards. It will continue until the lawsuits make it no longer viable to pocket the money instead of providing healthcare. Then they will declare bankruptcy and laugh all the way to the bank.
No John , probably what happened is your doctor had his credentials reviewed and received permission to operate at the hospital you went , even though your doctor probably had to drive further to operate there.
I was born in Asheville. Long ago, I remember when one of my siblings had an operation at Mission. My parents left my sister alone at the hospital during the night, confident that she would get good care. My sister returned home fixed up and she shared happy stories of watching NCAA basketball with staff. (Staffing levels made it possible to give a patient a little extra time, it seems.) These days, I see YELP/ Google reviews , Facebook Mountain Maladies Group posts, Watchdog & Citizen Times articles and NBC reporting discussing concerns about facility cleanliness, quality of care, staffing levels, accuracy of billing, discharge procedures, and errors. The state needs to get rid of Certificate of Need laws and get some quality healthcare competition going from the coast to the mountains, in my opinion. Even Kentucky got rid of their Certificate of Need Laws. I don’t know of any research which finds these laws have improved healthcare, but it seems like they protect big healthcare from competition.
Kentucky, unfortunately, still has certificate of need laws. South Carolina repealed CON for everything except nursing homes in 2023!
Oh gosh, I appreciate this correction. I just checked, and I saw this sad headline (After six months of study, Kentucky certificate of need task force says more study needed
BY: SARAH LADD – DECEMBER 14, 2023 11:18 AM) — Fingers crossed that NC can emulate SC and not KY!
Dr Joslin’s deposition is chilling. I’ve lived in Asheville for five years. When researching the move, I was told that Mission Hospital had an excellent reputation. The switch was made just before I arrived. The deal made by the hospital’s board with HCA stinks to high heaven. I can’t help believing that the fix was in. Recently, my daughter-in-law, a physician, sought to relocate to North Carolina. She interviewed in a number of places. Practitioners within the state told her, “Whatever you do, don’t sign on at Mission.” This is affecting our ability to attract quality providers to western North Carolina. Meanwhile, I understand that HCA is earning huge profits from its operations at Mission.
I’ve been visiting Asheville regularly for 13 years. I’ve seen a lot of changes. The HCA take over of Mission is the absolute worst thing for Asheville. I know a person who is actually selling their home and moving because they cannot get proper cardiology or emergency room care in Asheville. 13 years ago, I would have thought about moving to Asheville because it was a very attractive town in many ways. Tourism and development have eroded some of that charm, but the real clincher of never moving to Asheville is the situation at Mission. My field of work is in organization development and what HCA has done is a case study in malfeasance worthy of the Harvard Business School. I wish the community the best and that is only going to happen when HCA is gone.
You get yr cardiac care at UNC CH. Asheville Cardiology, owned by Mission, will literally kill you. They did me —even after I suggested to the cardiologist that his dosing was incorrect as associated with my follow up EKG’s. Didn’t matter, he killed me in my sleep anyway and so I sued.
Scott’s words are heartbreaking. I worked with him for many years at Mission and he is a good man and a wonderful physician. He was a tireless advocate for his patients and for those who worked under him. His loss is truly an emblem of what’s wrong with letting for-profit corporations run our health care system.
I really believe most of the members of the board who signed off on the sale to HCA were good people, working with honest and good intentions, but not enough skepticism. It should serve as a red flag for all who serve on charitable boards — keep your eyes open, ask rude questions and don’t be intimidated by your lack of detailed knowledge.
I live in Asheville but my primary care physician is at Advent Health. Are Buncombe County EMS Staff required by contract to take me to HCA. Can I request transport to Advent Health?
If Mission is the closest hospital to you via ambulance they will take you there first. For cardiac, stroke and trauma you also need to go there is you’ll be transferred, losing valuable time.
My husband is on strict order to drive me closer to Advent than Mission before calling an ambulance if necessary (if not one of the aforementioned issues). I’m not sure what the lawsuit can do but I hope something.
When my husband had a stroke at home I told them not to take him to Mission but it turned out they were the only ones offering stroke care. The situation was horrible, not because staff wasn’t trying! They were running from er room to er room. The nurse there kept apologizing. ICU was good because they had the equipment and the staffing. The floor was awful. Again, nurses running. Broken equipment and beds. I had to go find the linen storage are to get towels and sheets. Not enough CNAs for basic hygiene care. I wouldnt feed the food to my dog- not that she would eat it! I had to raise a stink to get him a swallow test so he could get food—after 2 1/2 days of not eating and we had waited more than 12 hours for the team to show up. When we were back in the ER a month later, he was given the diagnosis of brain tumor and we were abandoned for 3 hours until discharge home. We could even get a bedpan.
That’s horrific. I am so sorry.
We have a loved one currently in Mission. We feel like he’s in a 3rd world hospital, we feed him, change him, fetch water. He’s often found with his legs hanging out of the bed. His diaper wasn’t changed for days. We’re moving out of Asheville asap to keep from being trapped in Mission’s catchment area. It’s terrifying.
That is typical of care there. It is a crime to treat patients that way. If you did that at home to him you’d be in jail on felony neglect and abuse charges. But at HCA it’s considered care. Hope you can get him out of there asap.
I’m so sorry.
I just finished one year of travel nursing on a med-surg unit at Mission. I would often say that it felt like a 3rd world facility. It is clearly designed to fail. I became numb to it as many workers did, but it is truly surreal how the staffing is. The CNAs would routinely have 18 (very sick) patients each, and sometimes would have the floor to themselves (so all 36 patients!!). A few times I had to console a CNA as they cried. Then a few days later the manager might ask you why a certain task wasn’t completed, SMH. They would try and get us to transport our own patients to and from tests; clearly I could go on and on. Let’s hope for better. Cheers.
Before HCA arrived in WNC, MMH had long been becoming a monopoly in healthcare options in WNC counties. I recall being flabbergasted at the salary of the CEO as WNC was still considered largely “rural” at the time.
The fact that the then CEO now works for HCA is as rotten to the core as it sounds.
Here is a link from a Smokey Mountain News article on the extent of that rot.
This deal seems like it was a foreseeable and quite intended outcome.
https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/30102-a-done-deal-how-mission-health-wooed-hca
This is what happens when dollars become your product rather than your supposed “Mission”. It happened to Boeing, it’s happened to hospitals, it’s happened to newspapers and media, it’s happened in the pharma industry. Private equity firms who have, as a primary concern, shareholder value rather than product are the scourge of the country. Nothing is being done to reign them in and it’s not even an issue in any election. Their impact on American life though is far, far greater than any “immigrant horde” might be.
When we moved to Asheville, one major factor was the crown jewel of Mission Hospital, although even then the failure of the state legislature to pass MEDICARE expansion was putting hospitals like Mission in a financial bind. I’ve been privileged to live all over this country and observe many hospitals. It is amazing to see how fast Mission went from being a core element of this community to a place of uneven care, misdirection, and a nearly complete lack of public confidence.
It will not get better as long as HCA owns it, and rates it as one of its more profitable facilities. As I recall, Advent offered to match any other bid but never got the chance to do so. How different things would be had that option been exercised. We have had nothing but outstanding experiences at Advent, even though it is a smaller hospital without some specialty services. Overall, this is a tale of avoidable consequences.
Point well taken, but I think it was Novant. Novant was interested in buying Mission, not Advent.
So many doctors are now having a come to Jesus moment. Too little too late. How many patients did you all turn your back to knowing they were being neglected and harmed? Doctors have the luxury to move on and get another job, although it may be a “hardship.” Patients left to rot and in that place have no recourse and no way out. It’s been nearly 5 years and it gets worse by the day. It’s not even up to third world standards. I’d like to see a true body count of the harm. The watchdog has done a fine job reporting, but y’all haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
HCA should have a RICO suit filed against it.
Go after the Board of Directors, either they did not do due diligence. Or they blatantly ignored to financially enrich themselves. Please, someone list their names, jobs, current salaries.
I’ve been following current issues for years. I was in government relations and my responsibilities included working on local, state and federal level issues, so I know how important good reporting is for our community. Watchdog is doing a stellar job for this community in conducting interviews like the one above and reporting on this vital issue that impacts the entire WNC region. Thank you.
For a national look at HCA, please visit or google NBC/Cynthia McFadden. She is also delving into HCA’s poor performance regarding their lax patients’ care in other states.
I have been amazed by NBC/McFadden reporting about HCA around the nation. HCA never should have been allowed in NC. Politicians should fix this state’s healthcare system.
Correction: we could NOT even get a bed pan
Latest from WLOS:
“Dogwood Health Trust launches search for new independent monitor amid HCA controversy.” (I think dogwood also needs to be replaced but what do I know.)
Remains to be seen if this is a way for dogwood to improve its monitoring or simply passing off responsibility for not doing its monitoring job.
I worked in WPB at a Hospital also bought out by HCA and my experience was such that I left and moved up here thirty years ago. I the same events and same lame excuses by HCA ” Nursing shortages etc.” I retired ( was helped by the HR Dpt) after I became a very vocal Union Member) It’s very sad that Stein waited until election year to file the suit.Wait ! Isn’t he running for some office..?
We will be moving away from the area to have the stability of proper healthcare..
Thankfully, I have not viewed nor experienced the current conditions at Mission, except for a couple of ER visits that were not impressive.
That said: Mission, before HCA was not a perfect world.
I had a loved one there for an extended amount of time and some of the short comings even then (mid-2019) were as a result of the “quality” of nurses and doctors.
Incidents such as:
–There was a pinched gastric tube (which I figured out) to control vomiting that was not tended to correctly, almost making this person even sicker;
–There was an IV drip to deliver potassium at 10% that was set to 100% and if I had not been present and pointed out that the drip, just did not “sound right” — it would have burned this patient even more;
–There were many instances of pain medicine to be delivered in certain time window that sometimes went two, three hours longer than prescribed to be dispensed.
–Countless times there were beeps and alarms that were ignored in the ER and regular rooms as nurses and doctors would sit in their area outside the rooms laughing and cutting up (because one could hear them).
There was good care, sometimes even great, but in the heat of the moment, when it is bad…it was really bad.
The point: Mission already had issues, even before HCA arrived and HCA just lowered the care even lower.
After reading and hearing first hand about derelict treatment, not care, at Mission/HCA, I am apprehensive about opening if the new 120 bed behavioral health unit. The City may have okayed building design but who is checking staffing levels per patient?? And real people have to be counted on the floor not reports by HCA management. On behalf of people with invisible disabilities, it may not be too late to keep this facility from accepting patients. From toddlers to the elderly. Think about it now.
Please publish an article regarding alternatives available to WNC citizens seeking local hospital care other than HCA/Mission. Thank you.
The problem is bigger than HCA. The problem is a dysfunctional US healthcare system that favors profits and shareholders over quality medical services. If healthcare is a public good equivalent to having robust police and defense departments, quality roads and schools, is profit involved at all. Healthcare is a public good, we all do better when everyone’s healthcare needs are met. We spend more per capita than all peer nations and have worse outcomes. We need universal healthcare insurance that is not profit driven. Medicare and Medicaid have issues but they operate on a budget that spends 3% or less on administrative costs vs the bloated private sector that is capped at 20%. There is currently one administrative personnel for every hospital bed in this country. Physicians for a National Health Program have a workable plan that has been incorporated into both the senate and house bills. Think about whether you really want entities such as HCA and others profiting from your hard earned health dollars. You can visit http://www.PNHP.org.
Board of Trustees
Chad Patrick
Shantelle Simpson
Greg Lowe
Melanie Wetmore
Terry Bellamy
Larry Harris
Lynn Keiffer
Chris Flanders, MD
Alex Schneider, MD
Laurie Haynes
Anthony Spensieri, MD
William Shillinglaw, MD
Ken Kramer
Gregory Campbell, MD
Donald Gajewski, MD
Is this what Terry Bellamy thinks our community deserves?
The CEO of HCA ,( Samuel Hazen ) was paid $14.6 million in 2022. He was paid $20.6 million in 2021. The CFO, ( William Rutherford ) was paid $5.1 million in 2022. And The president of their systems national group ( Charles Hall ) Also made $ 5.1 million in 2022. These are the names of the people who are responsible for our healthcare here in WNC. Not one has the word “Doctor before their names. God save us from this nightmare.
Mission itself is raking in well over a billion a year in profits. Even a conservative calculation comes out to more than 3 million per day profit and the lady mentioned above she couldn’t even get a bed pan and they’re tripping over dead bodies in the ER. Also some local officials claimed to know nothing of the sale but letters have surfaced to suggest otherwise, some actually wrote letters in 2018 to AG in support of the sale. The narrative has been false from day 1. Hopefully the whole story will be revealed at some point and all involved will be forced to explain why they willingly destroyed health care in our region and gave the keys to this pariah of a corporation. Who wants to go first?
correction, its more in the realm of 5+ billion a year profit. Silly me.
well, it’s a sordid story from whatever angle you view it from. Asheville faces a choice here… keep using HCA Mission and their affiliated services and practices, or find those not affiliated with them …which is not as difficult as you might assume. HCA will cave and sell …guarantee it.
Laura Helfman nails the root problem and one of the potential solutions. Board members appear to have been greedy, myopic and carelessly destructive of our community by approving the sale.
It’s sad that folk are afraid to get sick or have a medical emergency or condition because they will have to go to HCA Mission! I am! These comments are heartbreaking! I have lived here all of my life. Until HCA took over, I didn’t have any concerns about medical care at Mission. All of the patients that have experienced negligence, mistreatment, misdiagnosis, negative experiences need to make their cases known and made public if treated at HCA. I have friends, family and colleagues that have had terrible experiences, but feel they won’t be heard or anything done to rectify this terrible situation. So, until those people feel they can trust a system to delve deeper into the matter and find a solution for better and safer healthcare, people will continue to suffer and possibly seek treatment elsewhere. There are some very caring employees on staff, but their hands are tie, largely due to HCA’s money grubbing hands!
A lot of these comments fail to note that the old mission hospital treated psychiatry patients vey poorly and provided lots of good care for those specialties like cardiac surgery hat were profitable. That is one of the reasons that required to build a new psych facility. That does not change the validity of the article or comments
Thanks so much for this series. I would like to read responses from our senators Whom Tillis and Ted Budd as we as regional congress people – and what they plan to do about it. A lot of HCAs profits come from federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid – our tax payer dollars to add insult to injury.
correction: Thom Tillis
After receiving excellent treatment in intensive care by Mission neurologists for a hemmoraghic stroke in 2021, I was shocked when unable to get a Mission neurologist to schedule required follow up treatment because outpatient neurologists were fleeing Mission. Fortunately, I wound up with a great neurologist at Pardee. HCA is destroying Mission.
The more I read about Mission Hospital being owned and operated by HCA, the more heartbreaking it is. The hospital is being run as a corporation rather than as a hospital. And sadly, with corporate takeover results in many respects. I have seen in recent years other hospitals merge but the results were not anything like this. Of course, the boards voted to remain not-for-profit. As was previously stated by another reader please publish an article about the other hospitals in the area so residents and visitors have an understanding of what other health options may be available to consider. Not as a comparison but as a need to know; written in an objective manner. The Asheville Watchdog has done superb journalistic reporting regarding HCA/Mission and other newsworthy stories such as the downtown series. Thank you.