Mission Hospital faces an exodus of urologists, and five physicians from a local urology group refuse to practice at the HCA Healthcare-owned hospital, potentially reducing the number of specialists in the system to two by summer.
Author: Asheville Watchdog
Showing 43-63 of 146 results
UNCA applies institutional neutrality to Gaza protests, social justice displays
“Institutional neutrality promotes the open exchange of ideas and avoids inhibiting scholarship, creativity, and expression,” UNCA Chancellor Kimberly van Noort wrote in a public update to students and faculty earlier this month. “Compromising this position carries great risks.”
Buncombe child care providers face financial crisis when state grants evaporate in June
Buncombe currently has 95 child care facilities serving children up to age five, and advocates worry some will close or reduce services when the grants run out.
NCDOT awards $1.1 billion contract for main I-26 Connector sections
After nearly four decades of planning and discussions, the N.C. Department of Transportation has a contractor for the two main sections of the Interstate 26 Connector.
As NCDOT buys land for I-26 Connector, negotiation can pay off for property owners
After 35 years of talking, planning, designing and redesigning, the Interstate 26 Connector project is finally underway, and the N.C. Department of Transportation or its contractors are buying land to accommodate the north-to-south downtown bypass.
HCA hands itself a clean bill of health for Mission sale agreement
The 13-page report, filed April 30, runs counter to allegations made by Josh Stein in his 2023 lawsuit against HCA.
Asheville, Buncombe become ‘epicenters’ of hemp, the accidental industry bigger than marijuana
Asheville and Buncombe County are among the “epicenters” of hemp nationally, said Rod Kight, an Asheville lawyer who advises cannabis businesses.
Three years after county, city discrimination ordinances, no complaint has led to finding, penalty
Both the city and county ordinances make it illegal for employers and business owners to discriminate based on any “difference in treatment based on race, natural hair or hairstyles, ethnicity, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin or ancestry, marital or familial status, pregnancy, veteran status, religious belief or non-belief, age, or disability.”
Staff reductions contributed to Mission’s soaring profits after HCA sale, draft report says
A 12-page working draft report out of Wake Forest University titled “Mission Hospital’s Financial Performance Under HCA” collates information from federal data, HCA’s own projections, and other studies to show how the Asheville hospital has prospered since the $1.5 billion purchase five years ago.
Buncombe County seeks to join N.C. Attorney General’s HCA lawsuit
Buncombe County filed a motion to intervene in N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein’s lawsuit against HCA Healthcare and Mission Health. The county seeks more than $3 million in damages from HCA and Mission.
Former Sheriff Van Duncan passes write-in threshold to secure ballot spot for chair of Buncombe County Board of Commissioners
Duncan, 59, and his team gathered the signatures in 40 days, well ahead of the March 5 deadline, mostly by sending almost 40,000 mailers to unaffiliated or Republican voters in Buncombe who’ve voted in the past three elections.
Bids for main parts of I-26 Connector project come in hundreds of millions of dollars above projected cost
The bids were for the two main sections of the project, which the NCDOT calls Section B and Section D. These sections will involve new bridges over the French Broad River and new sections of interstate to connect Interstate 26 above and below Asheville, as well as improvements to Riverside Drive.
Mission sets 10-minute goal for emergency patient care, document obtained by Watchdog shows
Mission Hospital has enacted drastic operational changes, including rapid turnaround time goals for emergency department patients and their lab work and enhanced communication procedures, all as state investigators have returned to the Asheville facility this week following recent federal findings of serious deficiencies and immediate jeopardy.
CMS report on Mission Hospital details deaths of patients, significant delays in care
The 384-page document details why CMS placed the hospital in immediate jeopardy, the most serious sanction a hospital can face. It spotlights not only patient deaths and long delays in care but also a lack of available rooms, a lack of governing bodies “responsible for the conduct of the hospital,” and multiple leadership failures.
Republican Edwards crushes challengers in race to raise, spend campaign cash
Candidate finance reports covering all of 2023, including the first weeks of the 2024 campaign, show Republican Chuck Edwards crushing Democrat Caleb Rudow and Edwards’ Republican primary challenger Christian Reagan from rural Clay County.
Facing $6 million deficit, UNCA to ‘curtail adjunct faculty
“We need to get our house in order financially” Chancellor Kimberly van Noort said, and promised to “look at the entire university enterprise” including academic offerings. “Possible academic program curtailment is not off the table.”
Feds cite Asheville’s Mission Hospital for “immediate jeopardy,” HCA division president tells staff
Mission Hospital has been officially informed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that it is in “immediate jeopardy” related to deficiencies in care, according to an internal email obtained by Asheville Watchdog.
Watchdog event panelists decry HCA, call for improved care at Mission Health
Asheville Watchdog hosts “HCA-Mission at Five Years: What Can We Do to Restore Better Healthcare in WNC?” The Jan. 23 event featured five panelists: Dr. Clay Ballantine; Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof; Dr. R. Bruce Kelly; patient advocate and nurse Karen Sanders; and state Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe.
If HCA doesn’t address deficiencies quickly, it could lose Medicare and Medicaid funding
Failure to correct the deficiencies could threaten the financial viability of the hospital system. The majority of patients in Western North Carolina are on Medicare, Medicaid or uninsured.
Legal case could be costly for PEAK Academy, which was established to close student achievement gap
PEAK officials are adamant that all applicants for student and faculty positions are welcome, regardless of race, and that the school does not discriminate in any way.
‘I was beginning to feel like I was on a sinking ship,’ says former Mission hospitalist
Dr. Scott Joslin is one of more than 130 doctors who signed a public letter in October decrying HCA Healthcare for “gutting” the local health care 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.
