The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have declared Mission Hospital, owned by HCA Healthcare, in a state of “immediate jeopardy”. This is according to a letter dated October 17 that Mission Hospital’s CEO, Greg Lowe, sent to the hospital staff, a copy of which was recently acquired by the Citizen Times and initially disclosed by Asheville Watchdog. This decisive action by the CMS is in line with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendation of immediate jeopardy to federal regulators earlier this month. Remarkably, this is the second occasion in the past two years that Mission Hospital has been plunged into immediate jeopardy – a severe infraction according to regulators that may lead to discontinuation of Medicare and Medicaid payments to the hospital.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency overseeing the CMS, informed the Citizen Times on October 21 that the department does not comment on ongoing or potential investigations to safeguard the unannounced survey process’s integrity. This statewide recommendation emerged after a hospital survey conducted over two weeks in September. Investigators discovered several instances where hospital staff did not maintain a secure environment for patients. These issues included mishaps related to patient identification, patient monitoring, and infection prevention practices.
Further investigation unveiled that the nursing personnel failed to address an emergent telemetry patient’s needs and could not ensure a patient’s safe transport and continuous pulse oximetry tracking during transport. This information was revealed in an October 10 letter that the state health department forwarded to Greg Lowe. In response to these findings, health system spokesperson Katie Czerwinski informed the Citizen Times on October 17 that while they respect the surveyors’ roles, they proactively shared their corrective action plans with CMS.
Targeting November 9 as the compliance deadline, the state health department mandated that Mission Hospital satisfies CMS’ conditions of participation for hospitals or face termination of its CMS Medicare Provider Participation Agreement. The immediate jeopardy recommendation was made not long after local elected officials, healthcare practitioners, and other stakeholders encouraged Mission Hospital to divulge more about preventable fatalities reported over the summer. According to Lowe, online misinformation and press reports led to the immediate jeopardy investigation and designation. He labeled aspects of the survey as unconventional, including its duration, and stated that he hopes any external influence in the region is not why the regulators deviated from their standard protocols.