ASHEVILLE – The federal government has declared that conditions at Mission Hospital create an “immediate jeopardy” situation, the most serious deficiency regulators can assign.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services informed Mission Hospital Chief Executive Officer Chad Patrick about the declaration in a Feb. 1 letter obtained by the Citizen Times.
According to the letter, Mission is not in compliance with six federal requirements for participating in Medicare. If the hospital does not remove the immediate jeopardy conditions or come into compliance with Medicare requirements by Feb. 24, the federal government will terminate its Medicare agreement with the hospital. Terminating the agreement would cease reimbursements through the federal insurance program, which would also eliminate Medicaid funding. The hospital would still operate, but would not receive critical payments from those insurance programs.
“If Mission loses its Medicare and Medicaid payments, that would likely close the hospital to most of its current patient population,” State Sen. Julie Mayfield told the Citizen Times Feb. 5.