JAHI MCMATH: Why I Chose To Blog About Her Situation

#JahiMcMath


BLOGGING ABOUT JAHI MCMATH:

I feel absolutely NO Regret for the time I devoted to Blogging about JAHI MCMATH (2 weeks).

GOD forbid if I were in JAHI MCMATH'S situation I would want someone to PRAY & SPEAK for Me as well.

Considering her Condition after being Butchered like an Animal by OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Staff & then left for DEAD, this precious 13-year-old CHILD could Not Speak for herself.

Thus I and thousands of other People, chose to PRAY & SPEAK for her.

Since I am NOT a Selfish person who only Cares about my Family, I could NOT have just sat back & Ignored this Child's Plight.

JAHI MCMATH is a Defenseless HUMAN BEING, who holds NO Responsibility for what happened to her.

Yet the Mainstream Media.......Politicians......and OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Staff wanted to MURDER her just to Hide MALPRACTICE.

They also most likely wanted to use her body for ORGAN HARVESTING.

This entire ordeal was all about MONEY......MALPRACTICE Cover-Ups.......and ORGANS.

i.e., POLITICS!

Do I believe JAHI'S situation & the recent Death of a 3-year-old Girl in HAWAII (also linked to MALPRACTICE) are somehow related to OBAMACARE Policies & OBAMACARE Legislation??

I don't know.

Dear GOD I hope NOT!

Nevertheless I feel absolutely NO Regret for the time I devoted to Blogging about JAHI MCMATH (2 weeks).

JAHI MCMATH'S life still has VALUE.

I repeat.

GOD forbid if I were in JAHI MCMATH'S situation I would want someone to PRAY & SPEAK for Me as well.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR JAHI.......HER FAMILY & her Attorney CHRIS DOLAN.

OBAMACARE UPDATE: Why Are Hospitals Turning Patients Away?? Can't Confirm COVERAGE!

#OBAMACARE

OBAMACARE UPDATE: So why are Patients being turned away at Hospitals??

Hospitals are claiming they can't Confirm proof of Coverage.

BUT WHERE IS THE GOP'S ALTERNATIVE??


ARTICLE: "Obamacare Patients Socked With Huge Cash Bills Flee Hospitals"


Staffers with at least one hospital in Northern Virginia turned away several patients this week due to confusion about Obamacare:

Were the patients covered by insurance or not?

Some patients walked away when they learned that the hospital would be charging them hundreds of dollars for treatment because they couldn’t prove their enrollment in the federal health care system.

“They had no idea if my insurance was active or not,” one woman, Maria Galvez, said to The Daily Mail, outside the Inova Healthplex facility in Springfield, Va. So instead of paying the $500 or more for her needed chest x-ray, she left – untreated, the paper reported.

“The people in there told me that since I didn’t have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,” she said. “It’s not fair. You know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.”

Ms. Galvez said she had enrolled in Carefirst Blue Cross three days before Christmas, for $450 per month.

At the same time, she said, in The Daily Mail, “no one has sent me a bill.”

Ms. Galvez’s experience was shared by others.

A woman who asked to be published only by the name Mary said she couldn’t receive emergency services at the Inova Alexandria Hospital down the road, in Alexandria, Va., for the same reason.

“I had chest pains last night,” she said to The Daily Mail, on Thursday. “They took me in the emergency room. They told me they were going to admit me, but when I told them I hadn’t heard from my insurance company since I signed up, they changed their tune.”

She said that a nurse told her that her hospital bill would be at least $3,000 a day if she stayed, due to her inability to prove insurance coverage.

Rather than stay and pay, she left.

“Should I be in the hospital? Probably,” she said, The Daily Mail reported.

“Maybe it’s one of those borderline cases. I have to think that if I were really in danger, they wouldn’t give me the choice. But what if I think I’m covered and I’m really not? The emergency room bill is going to bad enough.”

Source: Daily Mail, Washington Times

JAHI MCMATH UPDATE: She Was Transferred But Family Is Receiving Death Threats (God Bless Attorney CHRIS DOLAN!)

#JahiMcMath

Following a Mediation meeting ordered by a FEDERAL Judge,
JAHI MCMATH has been released from the OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA Hospital that Butchered this 13-year-old BLACK Child & then left her for DEAD.

Last weekend JAHI was released to her MOTHER via a Court Order & transferred to another Medical Facility where she will receive continued Medical care.

She was removed from the OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL on a Ventilator, but the Hospital REFUSED to Re-insert her FEEDING TUBE.

FYI: According to the Attorney representing JAHI'S Family (CHRIS DOLAN),
she is now receiving NUTRITION & ANTIBIOTICS at her new location.

Praise GOD! May the good LORD Bless CHRIS DOLAN for his dedication & hard work for JAHI'S Family.



However due to DEATH THREATS made against JAHI'S Family, the Medical Facility where JAHI was Transferred will remain Unidentified.

JAHI'S DEATH CERTIFICATE was signed by a CORONER, dated DECEMBER 12, 2013.

JAHI MCMATH is BRAIN DEAD but NOT Physically DEAD after a Routine TONSILLECTOMY Procedure.

I repeat.

JAHI MCMATH'S Family has received DEATH THREATS & her DEATH CERTIFICATE was signed by a CORONER for DECEMBER 12, 2013.

So why the DEATH THREATS??

There are Powerful people who are Blood Thirsty for Human ORGANS, which is a very Lucrative Industry in America.

JAHI'S Young Vital Organs are worth close to $500,000!!

This explains why Hospitals are now Intentionally conducting acts of GROSS NEGLIGENCE & MEDICAL MALPRACTICE so they can Declare Young Patients BRAIN DEAD.

Human ORGANS taken from Children........Teens......and Young Adults are much more VALUABLE & in High Demand.

I suggest You PRAY.....TRUST GOD MORE....EAT HEALTHIER and EXERCISE.

HUMAN ORGANS ARE IN HIGH DEMAND……..STAY OUT OF HOSPITALS IF POSSIBLE………HOSPITALS ARE DECLARING PATIENTS "BRAIN DEAD" TO OBTAIN HUMAN ORGANS.

As it relates to HUMAN ORGAN Donations.......

Yes the Hospital is supposed to obtain LEGAL CONSENT from the Parents or next of kin FIRST.

However please know that HOSPITALS have been Stealing HUMAN ORGANS from PATIENTS for Decades.

Especially from Poor PATIENTS & BLACK Patients!

(My Mother worked in the Nursing Field for more than 20 years before She Retired.)

When a Physician signs off on the documents that you are DEAD.....they can STEAL your ORGANS before they roll you into the MORGUE.

Since the HUMAN Body is NO longer viewed as Sacred in American Society, this process of removing ORGANS is akin to Slaughtering ANIMALS.

Only a trained, licensed MORTICIAN can really determine if HUMAN ORGANS are missing from a Body because there are ways to Surgically remove ORGANS without disfiguring the Body.

I know it sounds HORRIBLE but its nothing new in the Medical Industry.

HUMAN ORGANS are worth big Buck$$$$!!

Especially HUMAN ORGANS from Children...Teens.....and Young Adults.

ARTICLE: "Brain Dead Girl Jahi McMath Released From California Hospital"

STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

***Attorney: "We're very relieved that she got safely to where she needed to be".

***Jahi McMath is now receiving antibiotics and nutritional support, he says.

***The 13-year-old is on a ventilator and has been declared brain dead by some doctors.

***Her family has moved her to another facility.

Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old girl on a ventilator who was declared brain dead by California doctors after tonsil surgery, was released from a hospital to her mother Sunday night and moved to a facility willing to continue her care.

"We're very relieved that she got safely to where she needed to be, because we were all very afraid given the fragile condition as she wasted away at Children's that she might not make it," Attorney Chris Dolan told reporters Monday.

The move to an undisclosed location ends one chapter of a weekslong struggle between Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland, which sought to remove Jahi from the ventilator after it and a judge concluded she was brain dead, and her relatives, who fought in court to keep her on life support and contended she showed signs of life.

The hospital released Jahi on Sunday to the Alameda County coroner, who then released her to her mother's custody, said David Durand, the hospital's chief of pediatrics. The hospital had previously said it needed the coroner's consent for the transfer because Jahi was legally dead.

Jahi -- who was declared brain dead December 12 after post-surgery complications that her family says included severe bleeding and cardiac arrest -- was moved from the hospital Sunday accompanied by a critical care team. She was attached to a ventilator, but with no feeding tube in place.

On Monday, Dolan said Jahi was being given antibiotics to fight infections and nutritional support.

"They're giving her everything that a person who would have a chance to live would be getting," he said.

He declined to provide details about the type of facility, citing privacy and security concerns.

"She's where she's going to be for a while," he said. "She needs to be medically stabilized, medically treated."

Although a New York facility has said it's ready to care for Jahi, Dolan told reporters Sunday night that her destination won't be announced.

"We've had people make threats from around the country. It's sad that people act that way," Dolan said. "So for Jahi's safety and those around her, we will not be saying where she went or where she is."

Let parents decide if teen is dead

But New Beginnings Community Center in Medford, New York, said it is an option.

"At this time we're named as the potential facility that Jahi and her family will be coming to, but we will know more details in a couple of hours, and we'll certainly be happy to let you know as we know," said Allyson Scerri, founder of New Beginnings, on Sunday.

On its website, the facility bills itself as an outpatient rehabilitation center for patients with traumatic brain injuries and says it plans to open a long-term care facility. According to her online biography posted on the facility's website, Scerri worked as a hair stylist for 25 years and founded the facility after her father sustained a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident.

"We are aware of Jahi McMath's dire situation, and we are willing to open our outpatient facility to provide 24-hour care as an inpatient, long-term facility for Jahi with the required and appropriate medical staff that she depends upon," Scerri said in a letter included in court documents last week.

The surgery

Jahi's case drew national attention and fueled debate as a fierce court battle unfolded between devastated family members fighting to keep her on a ventilator and doctors arguing she'd already died.

Family members say the eighth-grader was alert and talking after doctors removed her tonsils, adenoids and extra sinus tissue in a surgery at the Oakland hospital on December 9.

Doctors had recommended the surgery to treat pediatric obstructive sleep apnea, a condition which made her stop breathing in her sleep and caused other medical problems.

Before the surgery, Jahi said she was worried that she would never wake up, according to her uncle. She seemed fine after the surgery, but asked for a Popsicle because her throat hurt.

Not long afterward, something went terribly wrong. In an intensive care unit, the girl began bleeding profusely, the family said.

According to family members, Jahi went into cardiac arrest. Days later, she was declared brain dead.

Hospital officials have said privacy laws prevent them from discussing details of the case.

The court battle and the medical debate

The family and the hospital disagreed over whether to disconnect her from a ventilator, and the issue wound up in Alameda Superior Court.

In court documents and public comments, the hospital maintained that there's no doubt that McMath is brain dead, describing the condition as irreversible.

"No amount of prayer, no amount of hope, no amount of any type of medical procedure will bring her back," Children's Hospital Oakland spokesman Sam Singer said last month. "The medical situation here in this case is that Jahi McMath died several weeks ago."

A judge on December 23 appointed Dr. Paul Fisher, chief of pediatric neurology at Stanford Children's Hospital, to evaluate Jahi.

Fisher concluded the next day that she met the criteria for brain death. According to a court filing, Fisher found that the girl's pupils were fully dilated and unresponsive to light and that she did not respond to a variety of intense stimuli.

His report also says Jahi showed no sign of breathing on her own when a ventilator was removed: "Patient failed apnea test." The report says her heart was beating only because of the mechanical ventilator.

In addition, an imaging test showed no blood flow to Jahi's brain, while another showed no sign of electrical activity.

Fisher's conclusion: "Overall, unfortunate circumstances in 13-year-old with known, irreversible brain injury and now complete absence of cerebral function and complete absence of brainstem function, child meets all criteria for brain death, by professional societies and state of California."

After seeing Fisher's report, Alameda Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo concluded on December 24 that Jahi was brain dead. But Grillo twice ruled that the hospital had to hold off on disconnecting Jahi from life support, ultimately giving the family and the facility until January 7 to come to a resolution.

The Alameda County coroner issued a death certificate for Jahi on Friday, listing December 12 as the date of death. The certificate still needed to be accepted by the health department to become official.

Medical ethicists, meanwhile, say the high-profile case fuels a misperception: that "brain death" is somehow not as final as cardiac death, even though, by definition, it is. The case is "giving the impression that dead people can come back to life," Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, told CNN last month.

Family members say they've seen reason for hope

Jahi's family members maintain that they're hoping for a miracle and want her care to continue elsewhere.

Her mother told CNN last month that she'd seen improvements, including indications from a hospital monitor that she said suggest her daughter was trying to breathe on her own.

The girl's uncle, Omari Sealey, told reporters last week that Jahi moves when her mother speaks and touches her. Sealey also said that a pediatrician has seen Jahi and has sworn she is not dead.

Hawaii girl, 3, dies after dental procedure

When asked about the girl's possible movement, Singer, the hospital spokesman, said he would not comment directly on any claims the family makes, citing privacy laws. However, Singer said it is "quite common" for the muscles of brain dead patients to move, stressing it's "not a sign of life."

So far the family has raised more than $50,000 on GoFundMe.com to move her. According to the site, more than 1,300 people have donated money in 10 days.

"We're very grateful, very proud," said Sealey, Jahi's uncle. "We want to thank everyone that supported us, everyone that stood in our corner, everyone that prayed for us, everyone that helped donate to make this possible. Without you guys, none of this would be possible."

Scerri of New Beginnings told CNN on Sunday that the girl just needs to be given a chance to recover.

"Her brain needs time to heal. It's a new injury," Scerri said. "We believe in life after injury. All of us here at New Beginnings have firsthand experience because we have a loved one that was in the same situation as Jahi."

Dolan said moving Jahi to a new care facility is critical to her recovery.

"We're very pleased to announce that Jahi McMath has been taken from Children's Hospital and brought to a place where they will use her name instead of calling her a body, and where she can get to the starting line instead of where Children's has left her the past four weeks almost, at the finish line."

In releasing Jahi, the hospital said: "Our hearts go out to the family as they grieve for this sad situation and we wish them closure and peace."


Source: CNN, HLN, Youtube

HOSPITALS ARE DECLARING PATIENTS "BRAIN-DEAD" TO STEAL ORGANS

#JahiMcMathBRAINDEAD

HOSPITALS ARE DECLARING PATIENTS "BRAIN-DEAD" TO STEAL ORGANS!

THAT'S WHY OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OFFICIALS DON'T WANT JAHI MCMATH TRANSFERRED.

In fact OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Spokesperson SAM SINGER now refers to JAHI MCMATH as "THE BODY".

I repeat.

The Hospital is trying to MURDER this Child for her ORGANS & to Cover-Up Medical MALPRACTICE.

SAM SINGER is a Cold-Hearted Blood Sucker who really needs JESUS!!











ARTICLE: "Fighting For Jahi McMath’s Life: “Brain Dead” Term Too Loosely Used"

(***NOTE*** LifeNews.com Note: Article Author Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a Special Consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a Bioethics Attorney who Blogs at "Human Exeptionalism".)

I have been following the tragic case of Jahi McMath, who went to Oakland Children’s Hospital for a tonsillectomy and suffered a catastrophic complication, resulting in cardiac arrest. According to the media, her doctors later declared her “brain dead” and told the parents she would be removed from life support. After a lawyer’s letter, Jahi’s life support continues.

“Brain dead” is a popular term, not a medical one–and it is too loosely used. Some use it to denigrate the moral value of profoundly disabled patients such as Terri Schiavo, who we now know may be aware and able to recognize family. Slinging “brain dead” as an epithet justifies dehydrating them to death or castigating family members, like the Schindlers, who fight to keep such patients alive–which they legally and biologically are.

In Jahi’s case, brain dead actually means a declaration of “death by neurological criteria,” one of the two legal methods for declaring the bona fide death of a human being.

To be declared dead by neurological criteria does not mean there are no brain cells remaining alive.

Rather, it means that medical tests, observation of the patient post injury, and history of the case demonstrate that the patient’s brain and each of its constituent parts have irreversibly ceased to function as a brain. As one doctor told me, it is as if the patient was functionally decapitated.

Death by neurological criteria is controversial. Some pro lifers see it as an excuse to harvest organs from living patients, and oppose its use as a clinical method of determining death.

Many bioethicists–of the type who once assured a wary public that brain dead was truly dead–agree, but because they want access to the organs of patients with clearly working brains, such as a patient diagnosed as unconscious but who can breathe without medical assistance. In other words, they want to allow killing for organs and they believe that undermining the public’s belief in “brain death” can help them achieve that end.

Under the law, brain dead is “dead” when it connotes death by neurological criteria. In such circumstances, if accurately determined, there is no legal right to continue life support of what is, essentially, a cadaver. This isn’t true–yet–of patients thought to be permanently unconscious. But that may be coming, my pretties. That may be coming.

A huge problem in this field is that there are no uniform criteria for declaring death by neurological criteria, with testing requirements varying from state to state, and in some instances, hospital to hospital.

That needs to change.


Sources: CNN, HLN, Lifenews.com, Sfgate.com, Youtube

U.S. Treasury Proposes Ordering Hospitals To STOP Abusive Collection Practices: North Carolina Hospitals!

The U.S. Treasury Dept is proposing to Order Hospitals to STOP Aggressive, Abusive Collection Practices for Unpaid bills.

Ex: Placing Liens on the Credit Reports or Homes of Patients who can't Afford to pay their bills.

Many of the Hospitals harassing citizens for Unpaid bill receive Hundreds of Millions each Year from the Federal Gov't to financially Assist Low Income Patients.

However instead of using that money on the Patients, Hospital Officials usually add it to their Profit Margin.

This Proposed action from the U.S. Treasury Dept comes after a recent Story about how North Carolina Hospitals were placing Liens on the homes of BLACK, Elderly Patients who could NOT Afford to pay their bills.


Treasury Releases Proposed Guidance to Ensure Patient Access to Financial Assistance from Charitable Hospitals

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today released proposed regulations on a provision in the Affordable Care Act that helps ensure access to financial assistance for patients of charitable hospitals and protect patients from abusive collections practices.

Under the rules issued today, charitable hospitals, as a condition of receiving tax-exemption, must establish billing and collections protections for patients eligible for financial assistance, and provide patients with the information needed to apply for such assistance.

“In recent months, we have heard concerns about aggressive hospital debt collection activities, including allowing debt collectors to pursue collections in emergency rooms. These practices jeopardize patient care, and our proposed rules will help ensure they don’t happen in charitable hospitals.

These rules also require charitable hospitals to establish and publicize financial assistance policies, and give hospitals the flexibility to establish programs that meet the needs of their communities,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Emily McMahon

The proposed regulations clarify hospitals’ responsibilities under the new statutory provision, promoting patients’ access to health care and financial assistance and transparency in financial assistance policies, while recognizing hospitals’ need for manageable rules governing their health care operations and financial affairs.

Key Elements of the Proposed Regulations:

Establishment and Disclosure of Financial Assistance Policy:

Each tax-exempt hospital must establish a financial assistance policy that clearly describes the eligibility criteria for receiving financial assistance and how to apply for it.

Consistent with the statute, the proposed regulations do not provide substantive requirements for a financial assistance policy regarding eligibility or amount of assistance, giving hospitals flexibility to determine the most effective way to serve their particular communities.

Additionally, the proposed regulations describe how a hospital must widely publicize its financial assistance policy to ensure that community members are aware that aid is available.

Limitation on Collection Actions:

A tax-exempt hospital is prohibited from engaging in certain collection methods (for example, reporting a debt to a credit agency or garnishing wages) until it makes reasonable efforts to determine whether an individual is eligible for the financial assistance it offers. Under these proposed rules, charitable hospitals must:

Provide patients with a plain language summary of the financial assistance policy before discharge and with the first three bills;

Give patients at least 120 days following the first bill to submit an application for financial assistance before commencing certain collection actions;

Give the patient an additional 120 days (for 240 days total) to submit a complete application;

If a patient is determined eligible for financial assistance during these 240 days, refund any excess payments made before applying for aid and seek to reverse any collections actions already commenced.

Limitation on Charges:

A hospital may not charge individuals eligible for its financial assistance more for medically necessary care than the amounts generally billed to insured individuals. To help hospitals comply with this requirement when they do not know whether a patient is eligible for assistance, the proposed regulations provide a safe harbor.

If a person has not applied for financial assistance, the hospital may bill the person at its usual charges, provided the hospital is reaching out to determine whether the person is eligible for financial assistance.

If the person is eligible for aid, the hospital must refund any excess payments already made.

Non-Discriminatory Emergency Medical Care Policy:

Each hospital must have a written policy requiring the hospital to provide emergency medical care without discriminating against patients who may need financial assistance.

To simplify hospitals’ compliance with this requirement, the proposed regulations provide that a policy that is consistent with the requirements of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is generally sufficient.

The proposed rules require the policy to prohibit debt collection activities in the emergency department or in other hospital venues where collection activities could interfere with treatment.



North Carolina Hospital Lawsuits Force New Pain On Patients

When serious abdominal pains sent Joyce Jones to the hospital, she hoped the bill would be the least of her problems.

She had no job and a bare-bones health insurance policy that she knew would cover only a fraction of her bill. So it helped ease her worries, she said, when a social worker at Carolinas Medical Center-Mercy told her the hospital had a fund to help patients like her.

Jones thought the hospital was taking care of the cost. But soon after her two-week stay, she received a bill for $34,000.

In 2006, the hospital sued her and put a lien on her small west Charlotte home. A widow, Jones would like to leave the house to her disabled daughter some day. But the lien – which will allow the hospital to collect money if Jones dies or sells her home – may make that impossible.

“All that money they’ve got, they should be helping people,” said Jones, now 65.

Like CMC-Mercy, most N.C. hospitals are tax-exempt – a distinction that saves them millions each year. In exchange, these nonprofits are expected to provide financial help to those without the means to pay.

But thousands of times a year, hospitals are suing patients instead, an investigation by the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh found.

An in-depth look at some of those cases suggests most of the patients were uninsured, and that a significant number of them should have qualified for free hospital care.

Critics contend those hospitals are financially ruining people they could afford to help. Carolinas HealthCare System, the multibillion-dollar public enterprise that owns CMC-Mercy, has generated average annual profits of more than $300 million over the past three years.

During the five years ending in 2010, N.C. hospitals filed more than 40,000 lawsuits to collect on bills.

Most of those suits were filed by just two entities: Carolinas HealthCare and Wilkes Regional Medical Center in North Wilkesboro. Each filed more than 12,000 suits over the five-year period, according to state courts data. Wilkes Regional, which is managed by Carolinas HealthCare, appears to be the state’s most litigious individual hospital.

Most N.C. hospitals rarely, if ever, sue patients to collect on bills. But virtually all use collection agencies, which can seriously damage a patient’s credit.

Often, the lawsuits hit people who are among those paying the highest rates for hospital care: the uninsured. Bills for uninsured patients are usually higher because they don’t have insurance companies to negotiate discounts on their behalf.

It’s unclear how many of the patients sued in North Carolina lacked health insurance and substantial income or assets. But in interviews with 25 of those patients, the newspapers found 17 of them were uninsured; 10 said they were never told about the hospitals’ financial assistance programs.

Carolinas HealthCare wins most of the lawsuits it files, allowing it to put liens on the homes of patients.

“We always struggle with, ‘Should we be doing that (filing lawsuits)?’” said Greg Gombar, chief financial officer for the Charlotte-based system. “But it comes back to a message …: If you have the ability to pay, you need to pay because other people are.”

The system never forces people from their homes, but does collect money after the patients die or sell their houses, officials say.

System officials say they file suit only when people fail to answer repeated requests for payment.

That, they say, is what happened in Jones’ case. The hospital said it sent her five statements and left three messages at her home before filing suit.

Jones says she stayed with her brother for a long period after she was hospitalized for pancreatitis, and doesn’t remember receiving the letters.

She had plenty to worry about at the time. Her husband had recently died, and money was scarce. But she had one thing – the 1,200-square-foot home that she and her husband had worked for 30 years to buy.

The home has a tax value of $70,000, but Jones now worries that the hospital’s lien may cause the family to lose it.

It wasn’t until 2009 that she discovered the true toll of her unpaid bills. Lacking money to repair a leaky roof, she tried to get a reverse mortgage. Lenders turned her down because of the hospital system’s lien, she said.

Her daughter offered to use the equity in her home to raise $10,000 so Jones could negotiate a settlement. Jones said she offered to pay that amount, and to go on an installment plan to repay the rest. The hospital rejected her offer.

Adam Searing, director of the N.C. Justice Center’s Health Access Coalition, said “the hospital was unwilling to be reasonable” in Jones’ case.

“If you have one person who’s being treated like she’s been treated, I think you’re failing your mission,” he said.

Carolinas HealthCare CEO Michael Tarwater said the system treats more uninsured and underinsured patients than any other N.C. system.

“We never turn off somebody’s health (care) because they don’t pay,” he said.

The number of lawsuits filed by Wilkes Regional has declined markedly since 2007, when Carolinas HealthCare began managing the hospital, system officials note. Carolinas HealthCare says it has worked with the hospital to help it become more selective about which cases it takes to court. The hospital once sued patients with debts as low as $300, but that threshold has been increased to $750.

Critics contend it’s inappropriate for hospitals to sue patients they could afford to help. And they question why so many lawsuits are filed by tax-exempt hospitals that are supposed to pursue charitable missions.

“Pure and simple, suing people is not a charitable act, especially when you’re dealing with people of limited financial means,” said Mark Rukavina, who heads the Access Project, a Boston-based nonprofit.

‘I almost passed out’

It’s unclear how many of the sued patients could afford to pay their bills. But the newspapers’ investigation found that many of them are among the working poor.

In a sampling of 100 suits that Carolinas HealthCare filed against Mecklenburg County residents, the newspapers found that 43 of them either didn’t own property in the county or owned houses assessed at less than $100,000.

Under its current financial assistance policy, Carolinas HealthCare says it offers free care to uninsured and underinsured patients who earn less than twice the poverty level and have less than $150,000 in home equity. For an individual, that’s equivalent to earning about $22,000 a year.

Interviews with 14 patients who were sued suggest at least five of them should have qualified for the charity care available at the time they were taken to court.

Carolyn Barber is grateful to the doctors at CMC-University, who she believes may have saved her life. She’s less happy with the hospital’s billing office.

Suffering from a respiratory problem that left her gasping for breath, Barber was hospitalized for 15 days in early 2009. She was 63 at the time, with no health insurance, no job and a monthly income of less than $900.

But about a month after leaving the hospital, she got a bill for more than $56,000.

Collections agents began calling every other day. Barber told them she couldn’t work and couldn’t afford to pay the bill. Then a lawyer for the hospital sent a sheriff’s deputy to serve her with a lawsuit.

“I almost passed out,” Barber said. “I was scared I was going to be locked up in jail because of that hospital bill.”

The hospital won a judgment for more than $56,000 in principal, plus interest – and about $8,500 in attorney’s fees.

When Barber tried to refinance her home in 2010, the mortgage company told her she couldn’t. The reason: The hospital had obtained a lien on the house. With so little income, she needed the extra money a refinancing would provide.

Barber previously worked at a Charlotte facility that helps people with disabilities. Now she’s on social security disability herself.

For half her life, she said, she saved up to buy her home – an immaculate three-bedroom house near University City with a tax value of $144,000.

“It’s something I’ve worked hard for so I can leave something for my three children,” Barber said. “The way it is now, I might not be able to.”

Carolinas HealthCare said it unsuccessfully tried to qualify Barber for Medicaid. The system said it also evaluated her to determine whether she qualified for financial assistance, but found she had too much in savings and home equity.

Barber said she deserved help, but the hospital didn’t get an accurate picture of her finances. Hospital officials apparently concluded she had too much in savings, she said, because they confused her savings with her sister’s.

Officials for Carolinas HealthCare say they provide care to anyone who needs it, and work hard to determine whether patients can afford to pay before filing suit.

“Do we miss some people? We probably do,” Tarwater said. “We have 9 million patient encounters each year. And I’m quite sure once in a while we may miss somebody. … If that’s brought to our attention … we will work with that person.”

Nationally, it’s not uncommon for hospitals to take aggressive collections actions.

But some states discourage the practice. Illinois prohibits hospitals from pursuing legal action against uninsured patients who don’t have sufficient income or assets to pay their bills. California, meanwhile, bans hospitals from putting liens on the primary residences of patients who are eligible for charity care.

North Carolina has no such rules.

Patients are suffering as a result, says Searing, of the N.C. Health Access Coalition. Nonprofit hospitals shouldn’t be in the business of putting liens on patient’s houses, he contends.

“That’s not strengthening the community,” he said. “That’s tearing it down.”

To sue or not to sue

Most N.C. hospitals don’t regularly sue patients. Novant Health, the nonprofit chain that owns Presbyterian Hospital and 12 other hospitals, has a policy against doing so.

“In health care, where you have people battling for their lives …, we just decided this is not what a not-for-profit health-care organization should do,” says Novant spokesman Jim Tobalski.

Novant’s hospitals are among a growing number that run credit profiles on uninsured patients to help determine whether they qualify for financial assistance. The process doesn’t affect patients’ credit.

Suing patients is “very old school,” says Cecilia Moore, chief operating officer for Duke University Medical Center. “It is not a good use of resources any more.”

But like most hospitals, Duke and Novant do use commission-driven collections agencies.

Jen Algire, former director of Care Ring, a Charlotte nonprofit that tries to improve access to health care, said she has seen hospitals grow more aggressive on collections.

“People are declaring bankruptcy when they have less than $10,000 in debt, partly because they’re being harassed so heavily,” Algire said.

Former patients say the bill collectors working on behalf of many N.C. hospitals call repeatedly, sometimes with threats and misleading claims.

In complaints to state agencies, dozens of former patients contend that collections agencies harassed them, sometimes reporting inaccurate information to credit bureaus or continuing to pursue them long after they paid their bills.

In 2008, Elaine Brauninger received notice from a collections agency that she owed about $275 to Lake Norman Regional Medical Center in Mooresville for medical services she had received eight years earlier.

The agency didn’t explain what medical services had been provided in 2000, Brauninger said. She had health insurance, she said, and didn’t recall any unpaid bills.

“I opened the bill and I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ ” the Mooresville resident said.

She said she spoke by phone with a bill collector, who hung up when she asked for documentation. The collections agency put the account on her credit report – a fact she and her husband later discovered when they sought a loan to buy a condominium.

After Brauninger complained to the N.C. insurance department, the collections agency contacted the hospital, which agreed to take the account off her credit report.

A spokeswoman for Lake Norman says the hospital “takes seriously any patient complaints” and is pleased that Brauninger’s complaint was “resolved to her satisfaction.”

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, a Waynesville Democrat, has pushed a bill to ease the damage that medical debt can do to a person’s credit rating. Medical bills can remain on a credit report for up to seven years, even if the bill has been paid and the balance is zero.

Shuler wants to change the law so that medical debts of less than $2,500 are removed from credit reports 45 days after the balance goes to zero.

Saying goodbye to good credit

Experts say many collections agencies have an incentive to pursue debtors aggressively. They often negotiate deals with hospitals that allow them to keep between 5 and 25 percent of the money they collect.

Charlotte lawyer David Badger speaks of the pitch that a collection agent made to one elderly woman: “You have the right to remain silent.”

Many patients complain that such agencies have destroyed their credit, making it harder to buy a home or car.

The stories have become familiar to Care Ring’s managers. In a 2010 survey by the nonprofit, about a third of the 327 clients polled said their credit had been harmed.

Tony Chris Davis knows all too well about such worries.

When serious respiratory problems sent the Yadkin County resident to Carolinas Medical Center in October 2008, he had no health insurance and just $1,400 a month in income from Social Security disability. He told hospital officials he was deeply concerned about the cost of care, he said.

But following his discharge from the hospital, CMC sent him a bill. The total: about $40,000.

Alarmed, Davis called the hospitals and spoke with an official who, he said, told him that he wasn’t eligible for charity care because he owned a home and other assets.

Carolinas HealthCare said Davis had too much in savings to qualify for charity care, and that he declined to “spend down” those savings in order to qualify for Medicaid, which would have paid his bills.

Davis’ two-bedroom house has a tax value of about $63,000. He had about $20,000 in savings, he said, but needed the money to supplement his disability payments.

While he was hospitalized, Davis said, an official in the business office told him that CMC had decided to treat his case as charity care. Had he known the system would reverse its decision, he would have left CMC and gone to his local hospital, which had previously given him charity care, he said.

The hospital sued him and won a judgment. “I had perfect credit before this happened to me,” Davis said. “It has ruined me.”


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Sources: AP, McClatchy Newspapers, U.S. Dept Of Treasury, WCNC, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

Bloomberg Shuts Down Nation's Largest Mass Transit System For Irene; Evacuates Sick & Elderly

N.Y.C. to Shut Mass Transit for Storm

With Hurricane Irene pushing relentlessly toward the East Coast, officials made plans to shut down New York City’s sprawling subway and bus system beginning at noon on Saturday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.

The commuter rail lines that serve Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut will also be shut down.

Officials decided to go ahead with the transit shutdown, which they had first mentioned on Thursday as a possibility at a City Hall briefing on Thursday, as the city was evacuating hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying areas. Sstate officials continued arrangements for coordinating emergency services and restoring electricity if the storm does the kind of damage many fear.

Some Atlantic City casinos made plans to stop rolling the dice and turn off the slot machines by 8 p.m. Friday. The naval submarine base in Groton, Conn., sent four submarines out to ride out the storm deep in the Atlantic Ocean. And Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that all lanes of 28-mile stretch of a major highway in Ocean County would go in only one direction — westward — beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday to help speed the trip away from Long Beach Island.

Those preparations came as states of emergency remained in effect in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Homeowners scrambled to cover windows with plywood and boaters struggled to get their vessels away from docks.

In New York, apartment dwellers with balconies and terraces hauled in patio furniture and potted plants, and stores ran short on staples like batteries, flashlights and bottled water. In shore towns on Long Island and in New Jersey, vacationers waited in lines at gasoline stations and watched as emergency crews piled sandbags on low-lying beach roads.

The hurricane watch for the city was a formal indication that forecasters saw a potential threat within 24 to 36 hours. It was issued 14 hours after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the city was ready with “evacuation contingencies” for low-lying places like Coney Island in Brooklyn, Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan and parts of Staten Island and the Rockaways in Queens — areas that are home to 250,000 people.

The mayor said Thursday that the city was ordering nursing homes and hospitals in those areas to evacuate residents and patients beginning at 8 a.m. Friday unless they receive special permission from state and city health officials, among them the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, who, the mayor noted, was chairman of the community health sciences department at Tulane University when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.

The evacuation order covered 22 hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities for older people.

The city also ordered construction work halted until 7 a.m. Monday. With the worst of the storm expected on a weekend, a time when relatively few construction crews would normally be on the job, the Buildings Department said Friday that its inspectors were checking construction sites to see that equipment had been secured. The department said it would check over the weekend that builders complied with the no-work order.

Anticipation of the hurricane disrupted other rituals of late summer. New York University postponed its move-in day for undergraduates, which had been scheduled for Sunday, James Devitt, a university spokesman, said. Students will not be able to move into university housing until Monday.

Columbia University also shifted its move-in day from from Sunday to Monday and Tuesday, according to an e-mail from Brian Connolly, a university spokesman. He also said that campus events on Sunday and Monday, including a welcome reception and a convocation ceremony, had been cancelled and would be rescheduled.

At a City Hall briefing on Thursday evening, the mayor said the five hospitals in the low-lying areas were reducing their caseloads and canceling elective surgeries on Friday to be ready for emergencies over the weekend. One, Coney Island Hospital, is to begin moving patients to vacant beds in other parts of the city on Friday, he said.

Mr. Bloomberg said he would decide by Saturday morning whether to order a general evacuation of the low-lying areas.

He also said he was revoking permits for events in the city on Sunday and in the low-lying areas on Saturday. The Sunday cancellations apparently included a concert on Governors Island by the Dave Matthews Band. A statement on the band’s Web site said people with tickets for that show should attend the Friday or Saturday performance. But the Web site said to check for updates on Friday.

The mayor said 300 street fairs over the weekend “would have to be curtailed” to keep streets clear for hurricane-related transportation — ambulances carrying patients to nursing homes or hospitals on higher ground, buses and city-owned trucks moving to where they would be ready for duty once the hurricane had swept by.

Mr. Bloomberg said people should stay out of parks because high winds could bring down trees. “And incidentally,” he said, “it’s a good idea to stay out of your own backyard if you have trees there.”

The mayor cautioned that forecasts were not always accurate and that the hurricane, a sprawling storm still far away, could become weaker.

“We’re talking about something that is a long time away in meteorological terms,” he said, “so what we have to do is assume the worst, prepare for that, and hope for the best.”

That seemed to be the official mantra from South Jersey to coastal Connecticut on Thursday. In East Hampton, N.Y., crews removed sidewalk benches so they would not blow away if Hurricane Irene howled through. In Long Beach, N.Y., maintenance crews used a different kind of defensive maneuver, building up berms that they hoped would block the waves.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie told shore-area residents hoping to sit out the storm that “it is not the smart thing to do.” He said people who were thinking about a weekend along the coast should think again.

“Do not go,” he said.

Mr. Christie also urged people on barrier islands to leave. “Right now, I’m asking people to do this voluntarily,” he said. “I am actively considering a mandatory evacuation, but I’m not there yet.”

Officials elsewhere echoed his concern about areas closest to the Atlantic Ocean. On Long Island, the Islip town supervisor, Phil Nolan, called for a voluntary evacuation of Fire Island “to avoid a rush of people as the storm nears Long Island.”

Cape May County, N.J., went a step further, ordering everyone out. Evacuations of its barrier islands began on Thursday afternoon. People on the mainland were told to leave beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday, said Lenora Boninfante, the county communications director.

In the northern part of the state, the Jets-Giants game at MetLife Stadium was changed to 2 p.m. Saturday from 7 p.m. because of concerns about the weather.

Back in the city, Mr. Bloomberg, along with Joseph F. Bruno, the commissioner of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, instructed residents to take preliminary steps: stock up on basic supplies, identify an alternative place to sleep in the event of an evacuation and prepare a “go bag” of essentials to allow for a rapid departure, if necessary.

As for a transit shutdown, Jay H. Walder, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his agency could not guarantee the safety of passengers if winds remained above 39 miles per hour for a sustained period. He said it could take up to eight hours to shut down the system, meaning that transit planners may have to make a judgment call on Saturday, well before the full force of the storm is felt.

And because it takes the agency several hours to restart trains and buses, a shutdown could last through early Monday, if not longer. “It’s hard to predict when it will come back,” Mr. Walder said, “because I can’t really predict for you exactly what will happen in the storm.”

In the event of a shutdown, Mr. Walder said, the transportation authority will aid in evacuation efforts.

Mr. Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to heed any evacuation call as quickly as possible, in case mass-transit options were unavailable.

Certain low-lying areas of the subway system are particularly susceptible to flooding, in Lower Manhattan and on exposed tracks in parts of Brooklyn. Overhead catenary cables, which provide power to commuter rail lines in the suburbs north and east of the city, can be knocked down by winds, and stations on elevated routes could be dangerous for the trains and for passengers waiting to catch them.

Still, against the drumbeat of plans and announcements from officials on Thursday, some all but disregarded the hurricane talk. Dave Merklin of Freeport, N.Y., said he was doing “practically nothing, because I’ve been through so many of these storms.”

“I’ve lived in this house for 40 years,” he said. “I wait until the storm is gone, and then I clean up the mess. I don’t do much in the way of preparation except make sure the doors are closed.”


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Sources: AP, CNN, Euronews, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina's Terrible Mental Health System Investigated By Feds!

Feds Launch Probe Of N.C. Mental Health System


The U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into North Carolina's struggling mental health system, the first step in a process that could trigger a federal edict for sweeping reform.

The probe is the result of a complaint filed in July by the advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina, which contends that the state is violating the Americans With Disabilities Act for failing to provide proper housing for people with mental illness.

Nearly a decade after the state Department of Health and Human Services closed thousands of beds in government-run psychiatric hospitals as part of a reform effort, more than 6,400 people with severe mental illness are housed in adult care homes scattered across the state, living in sometimes squalid and dangerous conditions.

The mental patients, their care typically paid for with taxpayer money, are often far younger than the elderly residents with whom they are housed. In the last two years, at least four residents with mental illness have been killed by fellow patients who had histories of severe mental illness and violence.

Vicki Smith, the executive director of Disability Rights, said the federal investigation could force the state to take actions to fix the mistakes made during North Carolina’s 2001 reform effort, which has also resulted in people with mental illness routinely languishing for days in emergency rooms because no bed in a psychiatric facility is available.

Word of the federal investigation also comes as the state is debating further cuts to the state’s mental health system and moving to close Dorothea Dix Hospital.

“Now DHHS is going to have to answer a whole series of questions about why mental health reform has failed,” Smith said. “This is huge, from our point of view. Huge.”

The Justice Department informed the state of its pending investigation through a five page letter received by DHHS administrators in Raleigh on Thursday. However, the state department did not publically reveal the news until it issued a three-sentence media release earlier today, hours before the start of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Renee McCoy, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said there would be no comment beyond the media release, which said the state will “work with the Department of Justice to provide all necessary documents and information in response to the complaint.”



Budget Cuts Hitting North Carolina's Mental Health System With Vengeance


Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and social anxiety disorder, Vinh Gazoo has been in a psychiatric hospital five times.

Recently released from jail after a six-month sentence stemming from a crime resulting from his mental health issues, Gazoo says he now survives week to week because of the Mental Health Association in North Carolina.

nonprofit association that helps mental health patients, the organization helps pay for his medication. Its employees and volunteers drive him to doctor's appointments and therapy sessions.

Gazoo was notified this week that those services have been dropped because of state budget cuts.

The $19 billion state budget resulted in a nearly 12.75 percent or $738 million decrease in the Department of Health and Human Services' anticipated $5.54 billion budget for the fiscal year.

About $75 million of DHHS's community services $390 million budget, which helps fund the Mental Health Association was cut, according to executive director John Tote.

"The cuts we have been waiting on from the General Assembly, they're here now, and they're hitting with a vengeance," he said.

Now, the Mental Health Association is laying off approximately 40 percent of its employees.

"Those 175 folks – in the positions they have – affect the lives of about 2,000 individuals across the state (who have) significant mental illness," Tote said.

He estimates approximately 4,000 mental health providers across the state will soon be out of work. The result, he says, will be thousands of patients without services.

Tote blames lawmakers, saying they were much more concerned with politics than providing services for DHHS.

Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, who serves on the state House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services and also chairs the mental health legislative committee, agrees.

Insko says she doesn't think most lawmakers fully grasped the budget cuts and the impact they would have. For many people with mental illness, she says, there is no safety net other than emergency rooms and mental hospitals.

"As an advocate, it's galling," Tote said. "As a person, it's sad – terribly sad."

For Gazoo – now, his option is a walk-in clinic, but he says he has no way to pay for the services he needs and no way to get there. He says he'll likely either wind up back in jail or in a psychiatric facility.

"That's the two choices I have, because without my medication, I get pretty violent," he said.



Feds Indict Former Chief Of Charlotte Non-profit Group Serving Mental Health Patients


The former leader of a Charlotte nonprofit mental health agency has been indicted on charges that he embezzled nearly $150,000 from the program.

Prosecutors said in court documents Wednesday that 50-year-old Edward Gerard Payton directed employees of Mecklenburg Open Door to provide him loans or payment advances. Authorities contend he actually embezzled the money, and only repaid part of it.

The court documents also say Payton used agency credit cards and vehicles inappropriately.

The documents contend that Open Door shuffled funds that belonged to clients when regular funds ran short because of Payton's activities. One charge says Payton was warned about the seriousness of his activities by the agency's former CFO, but continued to embezzle. The indictment claims Payton used the money to pay alimony, child support, and tax liens.

Mecklenburg Open Door ran several group homes and helped manage finances for many mentally ill and homeless clients. Payton was the agency's executive director from 2006 to August of this year. He was fired after the board of directors confronted him about the money.

Mecklenburg County severed its relationship with the agency in Nov. 1. They have since hired a new agency called Monarch to take over its responsibilities.

Payton was arrested Wednesday. Court records don't list an attorney, and a message left at a phone number listed in his name was not returned. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of his five counts.

Mecklenburg County has reacted to the scandal by changing its standards for county contractors like Mecklenburg Open Door. Outside agencies will now be required to have yearly audits of finances.

"We're actually going beyond what general accounting standards require to make sure that Mecklenburg County residents know we are watching their money," said Jennifer Roberts, chairwoman of the Mecklenburg County Commission.





Kenneth Jermaine Chapman's Death vs Carolinas Medical Center's Racist System


Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System has been previously sued on numerous occasions by several African-American families for Racist Medical practices leading to premature, medically preventable deaths.

Many of those lawsuits were quietly settled with families of those Black patients who died due to intentional improper care or NEGLIGENCE.

Such lawsuits and bad reputation is the reason why Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System now exist instead of Charlotte Memorial Hospital, the old CMC.

Thus its safe to say Carolinas Medical Center and Charlotte Memorial Hospital are one in the same.

How do I know this?

I always do my research and I talk to people personally affected by what I post on my Blog.

People will tell me things they might not disclose to the Charlotte Observer because the Charlotte Observer has a history of practicing Biased reporting and Discrimination in its publication of articles.

Kenneth Jermaine Chapman was an African-American Charlotte citizen who recently killed three members of his family and later himself.

Prior to his destructive actions he desperately sought Mental Health Care assistance from Charlotte's Carolinas Medical Center.

In fact he sent out an S.O.S. which was intentionally ignored.

Mr. Chapman clearly, verbally expressed to CMC Staff he had thoughts of hurting others and killing himself.

Did CMC Staff report his thoughts to Charlotte DSS even though they knew this man had minor children in the home?

NO!

They didn't give a darn because Ken Chapman was Black and wasn't an affluent citizen.

Now if Ken Chapman had connections with an Affluent, Politically-connected Black Charlotte citizen, than of course they may have taken Mr. Chapman's situation more seriously, but because he was just a poor Black man they didn't give a darn!

The result?

A Black Man who killed his wife, two of his children and than later himself.

If you think Jennifer Roberts (board chair) and the other Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners are seriously concerned about this matter or seriously concerned about investigating Mr. Chapman's case...DON'T BET ON IT!

If you think Charlotte's weak, scared Black Leaders are going to speak up...DON'T BET ON IT!

The only two Charlotte-Meck. County Commissioners who do really care, Harold Cogdell Jr. & Vilma Leak (both African-Americans) will be blocked from doing anything constructive by Jennifer Roberts (board chair), "Ms. N.C. Corruption" herself.

This tragic incident helps to further demonstrate how Racism is deeply woven into all facets and levels of Charlotte, NC's community, including the Health Care System.

Charlotte's other main Medical Center, Presbyterian Hospital isn't much better.

Its a private facility where Blacks go in but don't come out.

Presbyterian Hospital also has a long history of Black Patients needlessly dying but that's a story for another day.

As I was saying Carolinas Medical Center's staff intentionally did NOT prevent Mr. Chapman's death, nor did they help protect his family however.....

I'll bet Mr. Chapman's surviving relatives receive a huge bill for his so-called "treatment".

In fact thousands upon thousands of African-Americans within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Region have Carolinas Medical Center Medical Bills on their Credit Reports.

Many of those bills are decades old.

Many of those bills are due to Billing errors from Carolinas Medical Center.

Many of those bills are due to Carolinas Medical Center INTENTIONALLY overbilling Black patients.

How does Carolinas Medical Center skirt Federal Law as it relates to Medical Bills which are older than 7 years old?

Carolinas Medical Center pays Equifax, Experian and Trans Union Credit Reporting agencies to sell those old Medical bill accounts to Debt Collectors, who create new account numbers for those decades old bills and continue screwing up the Credit Ratings for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina's Black citizens.

Is this really Racism you ask??

Yes!

For White Patients treated by Carolinas Medical Center staff everything is handled entirely different.

White Patients who visit Carolinas Medical Center for treatment receive proper care regardless of their situation and...

They aren't intentionally overcharged, neither are their Credit Reports damaged even if they don't possess Medical Insurance because NOT every White patient has Private Medical Insurance, just like there are many Black patients treated at CMC who DO possess Private Medical Insurance.

I'd say its time for the Federal Gov't including the FTC, to take a look at how Carolina Medical Center intentionally provides inadequate treatment to its Black patients, how they consistently & intentionally overbill Black patients and how they are paying big bucks to 3 major Credit Reporting agencies (mainly Equifax) for the sole purpose of selling Medical Bill Accounts which are decades old to Debt Collectors.

Just watch the Levine Family, old Charlotte money and one of Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System largest contributors, use their big bucks to help defend CMC in any possible lawsuit.

The Levine Family is Charlotte's "Savior".

They often come to Charlotte's aid in a crisis however ONLY after the crisis occurs.

They run Charlotte's so-called Leaders including Jennifer Roberts and Anthony Foxx.

The Levines are most likely indirectly involved in most of Charlotte's Racist activities being carried out however, because they are super rich everyone is afraid of them.

If Ken Chapman were a White Man residing in Charlotte, NC neither he nor his family members would be dead today.

Or at least his family members would be alive today.

Both Carolinas Medical Center/ Carolinas Health Care System, Charlotte DSS and quite possibly the Levine Family are ALL legally Responsible for the Chapman Family's death stemming from total NEGLIGENCE.

If I were related to Mr. Chapman's family I would most definitely SUE and demand a Federal Probe to be conducted.

Sadly enough Kenneth Jermaine Chapman's relatives are probably uneducated or too afraid of Charlotte's Racist, Unfair systems to take legal action.

Charlotte's Racist, Scared Leaders know this which is why nothing will probably change.






Patient Advocates: N.C.'s Mental Health System Needs Fixing


Recent reports of patient abuse and neglect at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro is more proof that the state's troubled mental health-care system needs restructuring and more funding, patient advocates say.

"There isn't a system of psychiatric facilities in this state," said Vicki Smith, executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina. "What we have are individual hospitals."

Smith said there needs to be a consistent standard level of care across the state's four psychiatric hospitals and that right now, hospitals only try to meet the minimum standards of care to receive funding.

She blamed that on job vacancies, lack of training, lack of supervision and oversight and inadequate pay. Many state agencies also rely on a temporary work force, and that means the quality of patient care is not always the same, she said.

Better recruiting and retention are needed, she said, to attract more qualified and attractive job candidates.

It's something the state's mental health oversight committee also suggested at a meeting earlier this week. John Tote, with the Mental Health Association in North Carolina, says the General Assembly needs to make more funding available.

Advocates believe Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton has taken aggressive steps to overhaul the system since taking over last year.

For example, he's starting to hold workers more accountable, Smith said. His recent decision to close a ward at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro in the wake of a patient's death sends a big message, she said, partly because there aren't enough beds for patients there.

On Thursday, Benton said the Division of Mental Health must find an independent hospital management firm to evaluate Cherry Hospital.

However, Smith and Tote are concerned that any progress Benton is making could suffer a setback when a new governor is elected in November and if a new DHHS secretary is appointed.

"Four months left scares me," Smith said. "What concerns me is that with a new administration, the tendency will be to study the problems."

That would not be true if the gubernatorial candidates are already investigating and discussing the problems the mental health system faces. Advocates say they have not heard any specific plans from either candidate so far, however.

"Folks are going to be behind the eight ball, and if that's the case we'll see a perpetuation of the situation," Tote said.



North Carolina Mental-Hospital Workers To Be Re-trained After Patient Abuse Claim


The Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says workers at a troubled state mental hospital will be retrained following an allegation of abuse that went unreported for several days.

"The patient was not harmed. The issue was that they handled it improperly, so we're going to make sure that we're restructuring a whole bunch of training at Cherry Hospital," Lanier Cansler said Thursday. "It really gave us a clue to the fact that they thought they were doing it right."

The intensive training will be for everyone who works at the Goldsboro facility and involve a list of prohibited actions that result in immediate termination, Cansler said.

Cherry Hospital is in jeopardy of losing approximately $800,000 in federal funding following the incident last month in which a mental health technician dragged a 22-year-old male patient and covered his face with a pillow to keep him from spitting while staff tried to restrain him.

Among the findings in a report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the hospital "failed to provide care in a safe setting by failing to investigate the allegation of patient abuse in a timely manner" by allowing the same staff member to continue caring for the patient for 19 days after the allegation was reported.

Cansler told members of the Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Joint Legislative Oversight Committee Thursday morning that the incident went unreported for so long, not because staff tried to hide it but because they didn't know they did anything wrong.

No one will lose their job over the case, Cansler said, despite a zero-tolerance policy he put in place soon after taking over the department in 2008.

"I will not hold an employee responsible for doing something improperly if they've never been trained to do it right," he said. "That's our responsibility, and we're going to make sure it happens."

DHHS must now submit a plan of correction detailing the new training by May 21 to CMS, which oversees the federal insurance plans and reimburses hospitals for treating patients under the programs.

The federal agency revoked Cherry Hospital's certification in 2008, when a 50-year-old patient died after staff left him sitting unattended in a chair for nearly 24 hours. The hospital lost an estimated $8 million to $10 million in federal funding as a result.

Three employees were ultimately fired, two resigned and 10 others were disciplined in that incident. Several former employees were also charged with and convicted of physically and sexually assaulting patients in other cases.

Mental health advocates and state officials have blamed a lack of training and inadequate pay as contributing factors to the problems the hospital has faced.

Canser said Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget for the next fiscal year provides $500,000 for additional training at state facilities. A federal match would bring the total to around $800,000.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WCNC, WRAL, Google Maps