The vice president overseeing Haywood Regional Medical Center’s efforts to get its Medicaid and Medicare funding restored announced her resignation April 1, joining a growing list of officials who have quit in the wake of the center’s loss of federal and private insurance funding.

At the same time, hospital officials said they see HRMC’s board of directors taking on a more active role than it has in the past as the hospital tries to come back from its current woes.

A hospital spokesperson announced that Eileen Lipham, vice president over professional development, had submitted her resignation, effective May 30.

The announcement comes five weeks after the hospital lost its federal funding and coverage by two of its largest private insurers.
The loss of funding resulted from a federal inspection that found serious and potentially dangerous problems with the ways medicines were administered at the hospital.

Lipham is one of two vice presidents left from the administration at the hospital when that inspection took place.

Her resignation marks the fifth by a top official at the 900-employee hospital since then.

Meanwhile, the hospital has seen a marked decline in patients, with sometimes as few as seven people being seen at the center per day.

The hospital submitted an action plan to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on March 31, explaining what steps it has taken to remedy the problems cited in the inspection.

Interim CEO Alton Byers said that CMS told him that inspectors could show up unannounced at the hospital within seven to 10 days of receipt of the application.

If the hospital passes the initial survey, inspectors will return after an undefined waiting period and conduct a full survey. If the hospital passes that time, the federal government will restore its Medicare and Medicaid funding.

That funding accounted for 68 percent of the hospitals revenue source.

Meanwhile, hospital officials say the hospital’s board will have to step up and actively engage in oversight, rather than being a largely symbolic board, as it typically has been.

The board is appointed by the Haywood County Board of Commissioners. Its members are responsible for the hospital’s quality of care and the financial viability of the organization.

Some physicians and nurses have called for the board to include representatives from the nursing staff, which it currently does not.
All board members are planning to attend training sessions later this year, Byers said.