Community members shared their concerns about HCA Healthcare’s stewardship of Mission Hospital during a listening session Tuesday night.
More than 70 people attended the meeting at A-B Tech, hosted by the Dogwood Health Trust and Affiliated Monitors, the independent monitor tasked with oversight of HCA. A meeting was also held Monday night in Marion.
Gerald Coyne, who leads the independent monitor team, said it’s essential for members of the community to stay involved in the process.
“Their engagement has been a really powerful force in learning what’s really going on beyond just the required reports,” he told BPR in an interview. “They need to stay engaged. They need to not get discouraged. And they need to — when they see something, good or bad — report it.”
Representatives from the state attorney general’s office, the state Department of Health and Human Services, and HCA Healthcare were also on hand to speak individually with participants.
Every year, the independent monitor issues a report on whether HCA Healthcare is in compliance with the terms of the agreement it signed when it purchased Mission Health System in 2019.
The most recent report, for 2023, marked the first time HCA was found in potential noncompliance. The next report is due this summer.
For years, current and former staff, patients and others in the community have raised concerns about the quality of care at Mission Hospital, which was a nonprofit until HCA purchased it for $1.5 billion.
The Asheville Watchdog recently reported that since 2021, Mission Hospital has improperly released at least 111 bodies to funeral homes without a legally-required medical examiner’s review.
HCA is also in the midst of a legal battle with the North Carolina attorney general’s office, which alleged in a 2023 lawsuit that the hospital giant had breached the terms of its purchase of Mission Health System by failing to provide quality, consistent emergency services and cancer care. HCA has argued that there was no breach of contract because Mission Hospital did not discontinue those services.
Adding to the company’s woes, federal authorities last year designated Mission Hospital as in “immediate jeopardy” of losing its Medicare and Medicaid funding. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services lifted the designation in June after follow-up inspections prompted by patient safety complaints.
Among those in the crowd at Tuesday night’s listening session was Rev. Missy Harris, a former Mission Hospital chaplain. Harris is a board member of Reclaim Healthcare WNC, a group that has urged HCA to sell the hospital to a nonprofit.
She said the independent monitor is doing a “fantastic job” of gathering information from community members and working closely with other entities to conduct oversight of HCA.
She also said she was glad to see HCA had set up a table to speak with attendees during the event.
“I really appreciate that HCA agreed to show up tonight and last night,” Harris told BPR. “They haven’t done that before in a public setting like this. I’m grateful for that. And that’s a helpful thing for the community to see, and for the community to be able to talk to them directly.”
But she also said the company needs to do more to address the community’s concerns about issues at Mission Hospital, including the hospital’s handling of patient deaths.
“The question that I posed was, what is HCA doing to rebuild the community’s trust that when a patient dies at the hospital, that their family member or friend’s body will be cared for with respect and care and dignity,” Harris said.
She declined to share the HCA representative’s answer — given to her in private — but said the company “owes the community a response to that question.”
HCA has defended the practices at its morgue and told the Watchdog last month that it is working on database improvements in an effort to “solve some of our ongoing issues.”
