It happened in Kentucky. This is IN-HUMANE!!! Even animals get treated better. I cried after reading this article. Employees being treated just about like criminals.
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HealthPoint closes Augusta facility: Employees given 10 minutes to clear out
By WENDY MITCHELL
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 6:52 PM EDT
AUGUSTA -- Leaving a gaping wound in Bracken County health care availability, HealthPoint Family Care abruptly closed the doors of its Bracken County offices Tuesday.
Staff members learned of the decision to permanently close shortly after 12:30 p.m.
HealthPoint has operated from the site for six years, after four years at a Brooksville site, officials said.
Stunned staff members were in tears and upset at the way they were told of the corporate decision, but they were also concerned about the way patients were left in the dark about their immediate medical care needs.
Unaware of the closing plan of corporate officials, local staff had been contacted on Monday and told to cancel patient appointments for Tuesday, due to a noon mandatory staff meeting.
In need of a prescription, one patient arrived Tuesday to pick it up only to be turned away at the orders of HealthPoint officials on the site, witnesses to the event said.
"Patients need to know what their labs are, where they can get to their doctor and what to do. All they have is a note on the door," one witness said. "That patient needed their prescription."
HealthPoint CEO Chris Goddard, along with corporate personnel Marc Bellisario and Sally Jordan were on site Tuesday to facilitate the closing. Goddard denied knowledge of such an incident with a patient.
"A letter will be sent to patients outlining their options," Goddard said.
By 2 p.m., locks on the facility had been changed and a note was posted on the door referring patients to different phone numbers, depending on their needs.
Though medical care providers, including doctors and nurse practitioners, were given 90 days to decide if they wanted positions in some of the multiple northern Kentucky offices operated by HealthPoint, all 10 of the support staff saw their livelihoods and in some cases health insurance evaporate in an instant.
All of the terminated employees are either mothers with children or grandchildren to support, or women with strong financial responsibilities in their families, a tearful, now former employee said as she returned at 2:30 p.m. to read the note to patients she had heard was left on the office door by HealthPoint officials.
"We thought it was going to be a 'need some downsizing' meeting like before. They separated us from the providers and we were told we had 10 minutes to get our (stuff) and get out. She (HealthPoint official Sally Jordan) wasn't even nice about it," she said.
Officials wouldn't answer questions, another ex-employee said.
"Sally (Jordan) threatened to call the police on one employee who wanted answers about patient needs. (The employee) told (Jordan) what the number to the police was for here, but did get her things and left peacefully," she said.
Axed employees were given a packet of information and a one-week severance package was mentioned, another ex-employee said.
Employees could possibly go into the COBRA insurance program, though that program puts a large financial burden on former employees who want to maintain it, she said.
"A little hard to (pay for) unemployed," she said.
After a locksmith left the facility, a car pulled into the parking lot and a woman exited to read the notice.
"This is all these people have got," said Liz White of Augusta. "It was the only (clinic) they could afford."
Her daughter-in-law and her children, and grandchildren were patients of the facility and had asked White to check on the rumor of the closing circulating since 12:30 p.m., she said.
"It is a shame they closed it. Someone donated the land so a medical facility would remain open here. I don't know how long that was for," White said.
Bracken County officials were equally stunned at the abrupt action of HealthPoint, but not without experience at a similar incident.
"They did the same thing a while ago, jerking people around," said Bracken County Judge-Executive Gary Riggs.
Riggs did not believe the HealthPoint statement issued by Goddard on Tuesday afternoon.
"Sadly, today, due to the economics of health care and lack of a strong community patient base, HealthPoint finds it can no longer continue to serve the patients of Bracken County," Goddard wrote.
"That is bunk, the place was wall to wall with patients. It was hard to get appointments," Riggs said. "I hope and I am sure there is another doctor out there who would like to come here. There are plenty of patients."
Ex-employees agreed with Riggs.
"(HealthPoint) wants to point at the number of patient who left when doctors Guttman and Neus left in February, but with the new doctors on board the patient numbers have been climbing again," the woman said.
Asked to comment on whether the volume of patients using the services of HealthPoint at the site was growing, Goddard did not have specific numbers. Asked if the amount of money generated by the patients, citing personnel claims of increasing patient load, was a deciding factor in the closing, Goddard declined to get into specifics and referred questions to his written statement.
In the statement, HealthPoint gave patients three options, stay with HealthPoint and travel to a facility in northern Kentucky; go to Primary Plus in Maysville; or call to have their medical records transferred to another health care provider.
The accompanying flood of phone calls from patients came as a surprise to Primary Plus offices where Guttman and Neus had set up practice after leaving HealthPoint, Primary Plus officials said Tuesday.
Primary Plus is not affiliated with HealthPoint, officials said.
Sale plans for the Augusta-Chatham Road facility have not been made. Though not on the market at this time, the building could someday house another medical practice, just not HealthPoint, Goddard said.
"We are not at (the point of selling the property)," Goddard said.
Reopening the facility as a HealthPoint facility is not an option at this time.
"HealthPoint is not in the position to do that," he said.
Goddard emphasized his disappointment in the Bracken facility not succeeding, acknowledging he had often referred to the site as "his baby."
"It was my vision to have it work, sadly, it did not," he said.
Another car pulled into the HealthPoint parking lot shortly before 3 p.m., another ex-employee, still in work clothes was taking a peek at the information posted for patients.
"We called ourselves family here," she said. "You don't treat family like they did us or their patients."
According to a family member of one physician affiliated with the site, a comment from providers may be available when they have more information on what their future with HealthPoint may or may not be.
For more area news, go to www.maysville-online.com
Contact Wendy Mitchell at wendy.mitchell@lee.net or call 606-564-9091, ext. 276.
http://www.maysville-online.com/articles/2008/10/01/local_news/870healthpoint.txt
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