ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has placed Mission Hospital in immediate jeopardy — the third time since 2019 that Asheville’s largest hospital has faced the most serious sanction that can be imposed on a health care facility.
Mission Health President and CEO Greg Lowe announced the action in an email to staff Friday, saying CMS had accepted a recommendation from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) following its most recent inspection. The designation means the HCA Healthcare-owned hospital could lose its Medicare and Medicaid funding if the issues identified are not promptly corrected.
Lowe told employees the hospital was cooperating fully with regulators and disputed what he described as “misinformation circulating online and in the press.” He said most of the complaints that prompted the state’s investigation were unfounded and that the hospital had already taken steps to correct identified problems.
“It is unfortunate that there seemed to be outside pressure on these surveyors to find a problem,” Lowe wrote. “We welcome the follow-up survey and remain confident in the ability of our team to provide compassionate, high-quality care.”
Advocacy group Reclaim Healthcare WNC said CMS made the right call, arguing that chronic understaffing at the hospital has repeatedly endangered patients.
“Step one is to restore staffing at Mission to safe levels,” the group said in a statement. “The pattern we now can see clearly since HCA purchased Mission in 2019, is after being sanctioned by regulators, HCA surges resources to the hospital for a period of time to have an IJ (Immediate Jeopardy) lifted. Then, they return to a baseline of unsafe staffing levels.”
Mission Hospital was placed in immediate jeopardy in 2024 after state inspectors found 18 patients had been harmed, including four who died — because of violations of federal standards of care in the hospital’s emergency and oncology departments. That sanction was lifted after Mission submitted a corrective action plan.
In 2021, CMS imposed the same designation after inspectors determined the hospital failed to maintain a safe environment when a female patient with a history of substance abuse was found dying on the floor of her room, her IV disconnected and syringes scattered nearby, Asheville Watchdog reported recently.
Earlier this year, CMS also investigated the hospital following the February 2024 death of a patient who called for help for 29 minutes before staff responded. Regulators determined the incident violated federal emergency care standards but stopped short of declaring immediate jeopardy after concluding the hospital had corrected deficiencies.
Mission’s latest immediate jeopardy designation remains in effect pending a follow-up inspection by federal regulators.
PRIOR REPERTING: State wants Immediate Jeopardy status for Mission Hospital
