Hospital execs take heat during angry public meeting

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Despite apologies from the new Lower Keys Medical Center CEO and pleas for another chance to better serve the hospital’s patients, tempers flared at a Aug. 11 public workshop held to air complaints about alleged overbilling, quality of health care and staff management.

Dozens of speakers during the almost four-hour meeting went to the podium to tell their personal stories about problems they or family members had during a stay at the hospital on Stock Island, which is operated by Community Health Systems (CHS), a Tennessee-based health care company that owns 159 hospitals in the United States. Other speakers, many of them current hospital employees or members of the facility’s advisory board, lauded the hospital’s new management and urged residents to give it a chance to improve patient care.

But the mood at the meeting was primarily angry, with one man in the audience calling Dr. Robin Lockwood, chair of the hospital advisory committee, “a liar” when he said that no one at the hospital was aware that the growing number of complaints had not been addressed. The advisory board, which has held its meetings in private – another complaint from residents – sent patient grievances to hospital management to address, Lockwood said. That set off Key West City Commissioner Richard Payne.

“Why haven’t you been able to help these people the past two or three years? You’re passing things on but nothing happens on their behalf,” he said.

Lower Keys Medical Center Interim CEO Stephen Pennington, who took over hospital operations when former CEO Nicky Will resigned July 15, acknowledged that service and patient care at the hospital has deteriorated over the past few years. He promised several changes including itemized billing, improving relationships with local doctors, including not requiring them to sign a loyalty oath, and better communication with emergency room patients.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’ve got improvements to make. We have relationships to mend and also trust to gain.”

But whether city officials will give Pennington time to do that is unknown. At least two city commissioners, Payne and Sam Kaufman, are pushing for the city to sue CHS to revoke its lease to operate the for-profit hospital, preferring to turn the medical facility back into a not-for-profit operation. Payne, in particular, was incensed at the workshop after hearing stories from patients who said they were mistreated and overcharged.

“I want to litigate,” a visibly angry Payne said. “I want to sue their butt… How can we protect our citizens that we are supposed to protect? You’re talking about millions of dollars that are rolling to them (CHS) and they are not going to give it up.”

Payne was referring to information from Bryan Green, who was appointed to the hospital advisory board four months ago as the designated community advocate. Green said that the profit margin for the hospital in 2002 was 2.6 percent. In 2012, just before the hospital was sold to CHS, that margin had grown to 32 percent, he said.

“The industry norm is around seven percent. CHS should have realized that you can’t make 25 to 35 percent profit margin without shortchanging the patients or medical staff or, in all probability, both,” Green said.

However, Green said that suing CHS to revoke its lease would likely take years and millions of dollars and even then the city might not prevail. A better path would be to work with the new hospital administration to address the deficiencies, he said.

“It really isn’t reasonable to expect CHS to carry on the program of substantive investment, staff recruitment, etc., at the same time as we’re trying to get them evicted,” Green told workshop attendees.

That seemed to be the sentiment of several commissioners, including Clayton Lopez, Margaret Romero, Jimmy Weekley and Mayor Craig Cates, who called for some type of “guarantee” from CHS that patient complaints would be addressed.

“Why aren’t we listening to these day to day [hospital employees] who are telling us it’s getting better? Let’s give this new management team a chance,” Romero said.

“We need to hear them out,” Lopez said about Pennington’s team. “They need to hear our citizens. After that has been done, we can make a decision on what direction we should take.”

That opinion, however, was not shared by Kaufman. Pointing out that the Lower Keys Medical Center recently received a one-star rating on a five-star rating system administered by the federal government, Kaufman said that CHS’ priority is to its shareholders, not its patients.

“We need a guarantee that this hospital is going to be first and foremost serving our community and not the shareholders,” he said.

CHS’s lease to operate the hospital expires in April 2029. A tsunami of protests against hospital management rose quickly after former city commissioner Harry Bethel formed the Committee to Rescue Our Hospital at the end of June. Bethel could not attend the Aug. 11 public meeting for health reasons but sent a letter.

“I believe the situation has declined to a level which demands our involvement and requires our action,” Bethel wrote. “CHS has to improve on their image and the principals they portray in our community. They seem to have evolved into an organization which has fostered distrust by our residents and our physicians.”

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]