In a press release today, Mission Health President/CEO Ron Paulus urges a “grassroots call-to-action among the community and Mission Health caregivers … to voice their disapproval of recent intrusive activities by the House Select Committee on CON and Hospital Related Issues.” That committee has been reviewing the 1995 Certificate of Public Advantage — an agreement that allowed the merger of St. Joseph’s and Mission Hospital. Critics of Mission Health and the COPA say the hospital has overstepped its bounds, getting an unfair advantage in the regional health-industry market. Mission counters that it has met the requirements of the COPA and that the state committee’s recommendations will have “a severe and deleterious impact” on the company’s “ability to provide quality health care close to home.”
Here’s Mission’s full press release:
With the ongoing concern in Western North Carolina regarding Mission Health’s Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA), President and CEO Ronald A. Paulus, MD is igniting a grassroots call-to-action among the community and Mission Health caregivers to contact local legislators and state representatives in order to voice their disapproval of recent intrusive activities by the House Select Committee on CON and Hospital Related Issues.
Last week, Paulus sent a letter to over 8,000 employees detailing serious concerns about the Commission’s study that would deeply impact Mission and its ability to serve the community and surrounding Western North Carolina region.
“The House Select Committee on CON and Hospital Related Issues has recently issued proposed recommendations regarding Mission Health’s Certificate of Public Advantage and intends to incorporate these recommendations into their final interim report on April 19th,” Paulus wrote. “If the committee adopts the recommendations, any subsequent legislation created as a result would have a severe and deleterious impact on Mission Health’s ability to provide quality health care close to home.”
If enacted, the Study’s recommendations would:
1. Reduce access to high quality care, particularly in rural areas
2. Reduce patient and physician choice;
3. Eliminate jobs.
“I urge you to call, write or e-mail your Western North Carolina representatives and ask for their continued support,” Paulus said in asking for staff and community members to act. “It’s just remarkable that there is no representation at all from Western North Carolina on the Study Commission which seeks to legislate our future, and understandably, there is no support among the Western North Carolina House delegation for such an unprecedented expansion of government regulation into personal healthcare choices. Western North Carolina faces very serious health issues related to patient access, care coordination and quality exacerbated by our uniquely challenging demographics– that’s where our focus is and where it should remain. We want our representatives to urge the House Select Committee on CON and Hospital Related Issues to remove all recommendations regarding COPA from their final interim report.”
Mission makes some pretty grand claims about what the impact of changes to, or loss of, their COPA would be but they offer very little (in fact, pretty much nothing) to support their claims.