From Staff Reports

Buncombe County is seeking to join North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s lawsuit against HCA Healthcare and Mission Health, “seeking $3 million in damages for what it described as excessive wait times emergency services staff has experienced while transporting patients to the emergency room,” Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported on April 3.

“On Wednesday, April 3, 2024, Buncombe County filed a motion to intervene in Stein’s lawsuit against HCA for breach of contract, requesting a permanent injunction and compliance with the system’s obligations to provide emergency and trauma services and oncology services at the same level of quality provided at Mission before HCA purchased the hospital,” News 13 noted.

Meanwhile, the county asserted in a press release on April 3 that, “while the county is supportive of the attorney general’s suit against Mission/HCA, the motion seeks damages for the extensive wait times the county’s emergency services staff has experienced while transporting patients to the emergency room.”

The county release noted that the proposed complaint states:

 â€œIn the years following their acquisition of the previously nonprofit Mission hospital system in early 2019, defendants have disregarded their statutory, contractual and common-law obligations, allowing emergency services at the Emergency Department at Mission Hospital (the “Mission ER”) to deteriorate dramatically. 

“In particular, during relevant times, Defendants intentionally understaffed the Mission ER so that Buncombe County’s EMS crews often experienced excessive wait times to transfer patients to the Mission ER, requiring EMS personnel to attend to emergency room patients long after arriving at the Mission ER. 

“Central to the motion are EMS wait times at Mission, which increased from approximately 9:41 minutes in the first quarter of 2020 to 17:41 minutes in the third quarter of 2023, despite numerous requests and demands from County staff and management to expedite care in the ER. 

“At the same time, ‘90th percentile times’ – the time in which 90 percent of EMS-to-ER patient transfers occur – increased from approximately 16 minutes to more than 32 minutes. These 90th percentile times far exceed the 20-minute national standard reported by the National Emergency Medical Services Information System....”