One Woman's Experience At Randolph Hospital's "Armfield" Cancer Center

Author's Note/Addendum:  Henry "Buzz" Armfield attempted a comment on this post that was blocked due to length.  I am including what he forwarded me as an addendum at the end of this post.

I'm working on a post that was originally planned to go up today .  . expanding on the plight of Community One and how "the right people" in our mill town are EXPERTS at "turning a blind eye" (I hear that, as of this week, they will have one less place to meet and plot their evil) . . . and I had not planned to put anything else up for a while.

But last night, I got a call from Sir Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-gave-one-million-dollars-to-have-the-family-name-emblazoned-on-the-wall-beside-the-front-door-of-Randolph-Hospital's-Cancer-Center, and let's just say that plan CHANGED. 

In blogging terms, Henry "Buzz" Armfield is Edward Cone with a conscience and a soul . . . and has been, for me, a real knight-in-shining-armor.  It's very good to know that not all "right people" in the Piedmont Triad are cut from the same cloth.  Let me put it like this:  If Mr. Armfield was a local journalist, I expect my story would have been front-page-above-the-fold in the Courier Tribune long ago.  Because right is right and wrong is wrong, and the Buzzman is not going to sit back and silently condone his family name being associated with the kinds of uber-ugly things that have been done to me - and to others - in Asheboro. 

But Edward Cone-of-the-Moses-Cone-Healthcare-System-Cones is just fine with it.

Buzzy had a story to tell about "his" cancer center.  He was FURIOUS.  And he asked me, "Mary, what do you think Bob Morrison's reaction would be if I called him up on Monday morning and asked him how much money it would take to get my family name OFF that damned building?" .

A fly on the wall for that conversation I would love to be;)  But I counselled Mr. Armfield that any conversations with Randolph Hospital's CEO that did not worship at the altar-of-Bob would be pointless.

Before we proceed with Buzz's story, a few days ago, I contacted my old friend and "partner" at RMA, Laurie Anderson (I use the term "partner" lightly, because we all know now that the only "partner" who ever mattered at RMA Pediatrics was the Fergiesque redhead who sucked-up to Eblin's every back-stabbing scheme in order to get her bonus money).  I wanted to check on Laurie and her family, who now live in Arkansas, after the horrible storms this past week.  Apart from very heavy rains and some flooding, her part of the world was safe.  As the owner of an ancient piece-of-crap flip-phone, I am not a texter, but over the course of the afternoon, we began texting back and forth - updating each other on the state of our lives (her husband, Scott, does keep up with the blog).

She told me that her hospital was looking for Pediatric hospitalists, and asked if I would be interested.  I told her that for as long as my Mother was alive, I would be calling North Carolina home - such as it is.  Family is, after all, the most important thing of all.  Unfortunately, those running Randolph Hospital never understood my commitment to the hometown - or how hard/long I would fight for to see justice done in it.

Laurie and I are both older and wiser now - and we've both seen a lot in medicine.  She's worked with her fair share of incompetent and/or clueless administrators.  But it's been her observation (and mine, in around 40 Locums assignments in several states) that everywhere else except Asheboro, those types of executives do themselves in fairly quickly, and are gotten rid of.  Medicine is too cut-throat these days to do otherwise.  The suits CANNOT treat good doctors like crap and survive - nor can they pull a lot of the stunts they've pulled with patients (treating them as commodities) either. 

Neither Laurie nor I have encountered another situation quite like Asheboro . . . nowhere else are bad businessmen so protected from the consequences of their actions. 

Moreover, Laurie commented that she had seen some doctors do some fairly awful things professionally and medically - yet not be treated as viciously as I was for doing the right thing by a patient.  It's never made any sense.

It was good to "talk" with my old friend.  I have missed her presence in my day-to-day life.

Now, in the mill town setting, when you are treated as I have been treated for an extended period of time, and when you are forced on the road to get by (in my case living out of series of suitcases - something that was just NOT IN THE PLAN, no matter how some doctors in Asheboro might want to style it), you become very isolated - and come to believe that you are the only one who is being singled out for the abuse.  It's also very easy to fall into the trap (where the Cones of this world would push you) that "you need professional help" that isn't a law enforcement agency or government agency actually doing their jobs.

But after I "came out" in the blogs - and started hammering Randolph Hospital/its executives on the vile, despicable, illegal things they did to me (for the sin of doing my job EXACTLY the way the Medical Board and JCAHO and DHHS would have had me do it) . . . and hung in and kept hammering (despite all manner of abuse) . . . I've had the privilege of speaking to a number of people in the land-of-small-town-values who've gotten the less-than-royal small town treatment.

One of them is Ginger Hunt, Buzz's friend and former colleague from the Randolph County Department of Child Support Enforcement (they're the people who go after dead-beat dads).  Ginger, a long-time and experienced agent in the Department, lost her job (enjoying no protections in our "right-to-work" state), based on a pile of trumped-up garbage that didn't even pass muster with the state when Dick Wells' minions tried to stiff her on her unemployment benefits.

I empathize mightily with Ginger.  The powers-that-be in Randolph County are uniquely gifted at taking independent, opinionated, productive women and destroying their lives . . . pounding the wayward/disruptive girls into oblivion . . . showing no mercy . . . laughing and snikering at their ingenuity . . . and then turning their other face to the world and protesting, "What, who us?  But we WANT young professionals to live and work in Randolph County."

I've heard my post on Ginger's predicament wafted through our cesspool-known-as-a-Courthouse and stirred some turds amongst the lawyers there.  But Mary's "crazy" you see (in terms of saving face, it beats said local lawyers being stupid, dishonest, and/or grossly incompetent/negligent), so nothing ever comes of the truth.  It's barely a quaternary consideration.

(I'll also note that Brooke Schmidly, daughter of negligent Steve, faux-home-girl, chief cheerleader for how alcohol sales would turn the town around, and local lawyer now contracted as a back-up Child Support Enforcement attorney by the County, never made good on her offer to "help" Ginger find another local job.)

I asked Buzz to tell Ginger to e-mail me and tell me exactly what happened.  This morning she did.  I'm going to post the e-mail - in Ginger's words and in red (my immediate commentary will be in blue) - with some minor editing for spelling, syntax and privacy.  I'm holding back the name of a Randolph Hospital employee involved in this heart-warming story.  The e-mail speaks for itself.

THIS is how Bob Morrison's "world-class" Cancer Center operates:

Well, first of all, Buzz has bugged me about getting a mammogram ever since his wife was diagnosed . . . he made all of us ladies at the old job promise we would get one, without fail, every year.

I normally don't do what Buzz tells me to do, mostly to be defiant and piss him off (I like this about Ginger), but I know that this is important . . . and I am 45 years old this year . . . AND since the state of North Carolina pays for it (Ginger's unemployment benefits and medical insurance will be running out soon), my mammogram was scheduled for Friday April 29 at 7:45 am.

I was given a courtesy call on Wednesday or Thursday to remind me of the appointment.  The lovely woman that left the message (a real person, not a recording) carefully explained that I was to show up 30 minutes prior to the appointment - and not to wear lotions, antiperspirant, etc.

I showed up on time and at 8:15, was called back into an office by a woman I eventually came to know as ****. I thought we were there to get the insurance information squared away. **** told me that I had been called to her office because there was a problem. 

My first thought was, ''Oh shit, I have cancer!" then I remembered that I hadn't had the test yet so.   **** said that Randolph Hospital had a new policy that if a patient has unpaid medical expenses from up to 2 years back, the hospital will not render services to the patient until the outstanding bill has been paid.  She told me that I have 2 outstanding balances: $30-some-odd-dollars from 2010, and $100-something, (I don't remember the exact amount) from 2009.  She wanted me to pay the debts now.

I told her that I had no idea that I owed any money to the hospital . . . that I had not received a bill in those amounts . . . and that I would be interested in knowing what I had been billed for. **** proceeded to tell be that these balances needed to be taken care of. 

I told her that I understood that, but I was currently unemployed . . . and was not informed prior to this conversation that I had an outstanding balance or that I would be refused services until I paid . . . and that I still didn't know what I was being billed for.

**** asked if I was married, and who lived in my house, and if I was unemployed, who paid my bills.  I told her that I had a son, and that I was not married, and that I pay my bills. She asked, (condescendingly of course), "Well how do you pay your bills if you don't have a job?"

I told her that I said that I didn't have a job, not that I did not have an income.  She was showing signs of becoming aggravated, and pulled a couple of forms out, and put them on the desk and told me that this debt needed to be taken care of.  I would need to fill out this form in full, and provide income tax records from 2010, proof of income, recent bank statements (I stopped listening at this point), and bring it all back.

I interrupted her, and said that I was here for a scheduled mammogram and that I had other appointments later today, and that if she would send a detailed bill regarding what and why I owed money, then I will compare it to my records and get back with her.

I added that this scheduled procedure would be paid in full by the state health plan and that I needed to have the screen because my insurance was going to cancel soon.  She told me that I could not have the mammogram today - until this bill was paid. 

I stood up and said, "Are you refusing to provide medical service to me because you say that I owe a balance to the hospital?  What if I have breast cancer?  It happens to run in my family".  She looked at me and said, "Well, it is just a routine screening".   I said, "Well that is usually the way breast cancer is diagnosed."  She told me to lower my voice, and to sit down.  I told her that I would do nothing of the sort, and I wanted to speak to someone else.

(This is eerily reminiscent of my last encounter with RMA Director, Mike Bridges, ala, "I'm acting like a total bastard - using bogus accusations to destroy everything you've worked-like-a-slave to build - and I don't actually live in the town you were recruited home with Federal & state dollars to serve - but how DARE you raise your voice or talk back to me?")

She told me that there was no one else to talk to, and she picked up the phone to call somebody.  I picked up my appointment sheet that I had brought from Dr Whyte's office, and walked out of her office, and went back to the front desk, and told the receptionist (who I know from high school).  I gave the appointment sheet to her, and told her I was there for a mammogram and I wanted to go ahead with the procedure.

**** came up behind her and told her that she had called 3001, and nothing happened.  The receptionist went on to help someone else standing at the counter,  and **** walked away to the back room - off to the side of the reception desk.

I asked the receptionist, "What is 3001?".  She said she had no idea, and did not understand what was going on but would find out.

She went to the back room, and (I guess) talked to **** (who must have given her the scoop).  The receptionist came out, and very discreetly/kindly told me about the new policy (with **** standing behind her with her hands on her hips), and gave me a form that said RANDOLPH HOSPITAL CHARITY CARE APPLICATION.  She told me to fill it out and come back.

I asked if i could get the mammogram today, and she shook her head and said she was sorry, but no.  **** chimed out to the receptionist, "That is the form I tried to give to her and she threw back at me".  I said, "No, ****, I never threw anything at you.  But now I wish I had.  And by the way, you should seriously consider working on your people skills because you are certainly lacking in that area" (sounds like several of Randolph's old operatives that I used to know).

That was my grande exit line.  I started crying in the parking lot and all the way home.

If she had told me what I owed the bill for - or at least had been a little less condescending . . . I mean, they were turning down guaranteed money from my insurance company for the scheduled procedure, in lieu of the possibility of repayment on a sliding scale because I am unemployed . . .

. . . but the worst part was the rude/indigent treatment I received by an unprofessional  "non-profit" collections officer who refused me screening for a deadly disease.

I think **** would be happier if we just ate the poor, because they are obviously a drain on society.  I may have told **** that I would just go to another hospital that would appreciate my business (don't take this personally, but it's your insurance money they want).

Here's the kicker:  When Ginger got home, she was told that when her sister (who also has an unpaid bill at Randolph) recently went in for a mammogram, her bill wasn't even brought up.  She was turned away after a screening - but for a medical reason  - not over money.

So here's Dr. Johnson's advice to Ginger Hunt . . . as one burned "home-girl" to another.  Because of fibrocystic breast disease, and a family history of breast cancer, and the fact that I'm childless and have been exposed to thousands of x-rays over the years in the NICU & ED settings (what probably helped kill my thyroid gland), I've been getting mammograms every year since I was 35.  And I will continue to do so despite current controversies - paying for them myself if I have to.

Breast cancer killed my Grandmother before I knew her - she was too weak to hold me when I was born and died (relatively young) shortly thereafter - and I have no pictures of us together because she did not want me to remember her that way.  Breast cancer is an EVIL insidious disease that doesn't pay attention to the risk factors, and scares the hell out of me, and I did not need self-aggrandizing books by the late not-as-saintly-as-all-that Elizabeth Edwards to know that early detection is the key to survival.

Speaking as a "customer" (and according to Morrison & Eblin's own theories, they're always right), I already have a hole in my face/skull that's not supposed to be there - courtesy of a procedure done at Randolph Hospital.  I've suffered immeasurable pain because of that surgical screw-up - and although the anatomical mishap was modified/surgically-corrected, it cannot be completely fixed - ergo, unless I have brain surgery sometime down the road it will always server as a trigger for my trigeminal neuralgia - especially at this time of year.  I didn't sue for malpractice over that, but you could say I'm bitter. 

Accordingly, I would NEVER have a mammogram done in Asheboro, because I don't want something diagnosed that isn't there . . . or to have my boob hacked off for nothing . . . or to get chemo & radiation when I don't need it. 

That's how this crowd rolls.

[Why yes, Mr. Morrison.  The stories DO get around.  And those of us who are PISSED OFF enough about the way you and your two-bit hospital treats good/decent people are not afraid to tell them any more.  I'm not Dr. Cheryl Freeman . . .  sanctimoniously wrapping herself in the empty trappings of her position on the Randolph County Board of Health and vindictively wielding her poison pen to harp about "malpractice"-that-wasn't . . . and I can back it up.

OBTW, I'm NOT "a dime a dozen" either.

So PLEASE, Bob.  SUE ME again (it worked so well the first time).  Because this former public servant is not AFRAID of you anymore - and really WANTS to file that response on-the-record with the Court you previously brazenly lied to and treated with total contempt . . . and force a Randolph County judge to finally do what our District Attorney has, for eight years (exercising his "discretion"), bent over backwards not to do . . . because I WANT TO SEND YOUR SORRY, LYING, WAY-OVER-PAID BUTT TO JAIL.

And THIS TIME, Bobber, wild horses loosed from a foreclosed-upon Country Club could not hold me back from giving interviews to Fox News - as living, breathing proof that the IRS "oversight" newly-legislated by Obamacare is a pathetic joke.

I WANT to see you FIRED-FOR-CAUSE and STRIPPED of your super-salary and your medical/other benefits and your parachute (subsidized all these many years by the taxpayer and the ordinary people you could intimidate) just as you/your pals who run Randolph County have done to so many other-not-nearly-as-important-as-you-are-people with nary a second thought.]

Dear, sweet Ginger, you've already been put through hell by the powers-that-be running this county.  Buzz was worried that you might have been treated so badly because of your friendship with him - and your association with me.  I can assure you that this is not the case.  Randolph Hospital has the "poke the wounded animal" act down pat . . . and they do it to almost everyone who they think isn't anyone.  But you, milady, do not DESERVE to endure any more of that kind of BULLSHIT (sorry Mama) at Randolph Hospital's hands.  So drive up to Greensboro, or go to High Point to get your mammogram.  It will be worth the extra gas.

And don't pay one dime down on that old bill at Randolph until they present it to you in an itemized fashion - until they tell you what you're paying for.

I ask you.  When Buzz Armfield's beloved wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, did she avail herself of the services of the Armfield Cancer Center?

To quote your good friend and mine, "NOT NO! BUT HELL NO!!!"

So again.  Don't give the witchy collections officer a second thought.  Go get your mammogram done by people who actually care about something besides what you can put in their bosses' wallets, and in a town that hasn't already scarred you for life.

Ginger, you must understand that I work as a hospitalist - mostly in an OB/nursery or ED setting - where a patient's ability to pay NEVER comes up before services are rendered.  It would BE a huge, mega-fineable NO-NO for any hospital (especially a "non-profit" one) that accepts Medicare or Medicaid to deny an evaluation/admission based on an unpaid bill . . . not to mention, unethical in the extreme.  That being said, while what the un-named collections minion at Randolph's cancer center said and did to you makes me want to bathe, as I understand the law, what happened to you at the Armfield Cancer Center is probably technically not reportable as an EMTALA violation (even though Randolph is a "non-profit" and their ED is most certainly within 250 yards of the cancer center).

It's a legal fine point that most people do not understand, but while the Armfield Cancer Center may be a "non-profit", and a wholly-owned "controlled affiliate" of Randolph Hospital (most likely with interchangeable-with-the-hospital-&-its-other-affiliates "right" names on its Board of Directors), it no doubt operates as a separate corporate entity (and legally/more importantly to this particular incident, under a separate Medicare identity) from the hospital and its ED.

The Armfield Cancer Center, therefore, operates more like a private practice that can accept or discharge patients at whim (on the other hand, since the Cancer Center was busting your chops over a Randolph Hospital bill, I'm not sure how that plays out).

You were there for a screening exam, and not acutely ill.  While you certainly could argue that you might have cancer, and a diagnosis could have been delayed, it was not an emergency and your life was not immediately in danger.

The problem I have with the way you were treated is that the hospital/cancer center made the appointment when you called (i.e. if the hospital has this no-pay-no-play policy in place, your account should be flagged up front) . . . even calling to remind you to come in . . . apparently ONLY to intimidate/humiliate you into paying old bill - an old bill that was not presented in itemized fashion - and that they could not answer your (very reasonable) questions about.

Then, they refused to honor your appointment - an appointment that your current insurance would cover in full.

Then they're were calling security because you're mad - because they've pushed all your buttons and made you feel like a pauper-stepping-out-of-a-Dickens-novel (of course, THAT'S a CLASSIC Randolph tactic, to be sure).

They should have told you about the bill when you called to make the appointment, explained their payment policy, mailed you an itemized bill and spared you the humiliation.

As it appears (even in the wake of the most high & holy Obamacare), that I am going to have to sue the state and Federal entities that did not and have not held Randolph's feet to the fire about all the unethical/illegal things they did to me, I KNOW that filing a complaint with the Feds in this instance is an exercise in futility.

They barely read them.

But I sure have enjoyed writing about this on Housecalls, I hope it gives you some small measure of satisfaction, and I thank you for giving me leave to do it.  It's long past the time that this community-where-you-and-I-grew-up was told exactly how this gang of mill-town-thugs operates Asheboro's biggest "charitable" institution. (It has lately been very satisfying to watch what went around for me so long ago come around now - for so many of the "right people" who thought it was hysterical and somehow just - or who just plain didn't care - that I came very close to losing everything.  Of course, it's not so funny now - when it's happening to them).

Alas, our newspaper for damned sure wont' say/do anything but drool over imaginary space-ships.

I will say one more thing.  Randolph Hospital has a bad habit of firing people for doing their job.  I would not expect or want the collections-minion-who-made-you-cry to be fired for enforcing hospital policy . . . no matter how awful her "bedside manner" was (according to JCAHO, she can be rehabilitated).

I'm not Cheryl Freeman, you see.  And neither are you.  We are not out to destroy those-with-no-real-power placed between a rock and hard place.  We don't know what was going on in that woman's life on that day to make her so edgy (I once worked for Bob, you see).  We don't know what kind of guns were aimed at her head.

So once again, WHY go back to the Armfield Cancer Center?  If you live in Asheboro, you have choices (it's a good thing despite what Mayor Smith thinks).  Avail yourself of them.

Shake this humiliating slight off.  Know that these people are not worth your tears and will get theirs.

One more thing.  Speaking as a physician, I'm very sorry you were treated so badly by the hospital where you were born.  You know that I know how you feel.  I was born at Cone.  And years later, I was fired for saving the life of a baby born at Randolph - whose care was being botched by a doctor under Cone's employ.

It's the warped circle of life in Asheboro.

P.S.  Make Mr. Armfield buy you dinner.

5/1 Evening Addendum:  Buzz's Comment (Let's just say he's no Edward Cone).

I plan to buy Ginger dinner, in fact I always do.

This is beyond belief, and if what has happened to Ginger Hunt isn't illegal, it certainly is unethical.

I'll tell anyone, and everyone . . . I WANT MY LAST NAME OFF THAT DAMNED BUILDING!

My first cousin, Bedford Cannon, an Asheboro native, and retired attorney from Statesville, is the head of the Edward M. Armfield Trust.  The Edward M. Armfield trust donated a little over one million dollars to help erect this cancer center that was supposed to help local people.

I distinctly recall seeing Cousin Bedford, and his sister Betsy Cannon Hughes (an Asheboro resident), in a Courier Tribune photograph at the grand opening of this facility.  I also noted that another of the donors to this cause was called the Cannon Foundation. I'm not real clear on what it is, but I'll take a chance and assume that it could have something to do with Bedford and Betsy's late father, and my uncle, Dr. Eugene B. Cannon.

Dr. Cannon was a native of eastern North Carolina who married my father's sister, and served as a troop ship physician in the Second World War.  After the war he came to Asheboro and worked for decades as a Pediatrician. He, and Drs. Cochrane, and Suggs, were the three physicians for several generations of children in the Asheboro area.

Of course this was before Little Stevie Eblin declared "pediatricians a dime a dozen", and Bobby Morrison practiced econo-medical witchcraft.  I know-in-my-bones that Eugene Cannon would NOT have stood silently behind what was done to Dr. Mary Johnson and her family by Randolph Hospital.

The Edward M. Armfield foundation was created from assets owned by our late uncle.  As best I can tell, it has pumped at least two million dollars into Asheboro with donations to the hospital, the YMCA, and Sunset Theater.

The only donation that I have ever questioned was the one to Randolph Hospital. The others could be of benefit to the broader community.  But giving money to what is supposed to be a non-profit hospital, in a rural community, that is headed by an executive who is earning something akin to $700,000 per year, well that was just wrong, and a damned waste.

Do the math, there are cancer centers all around Asheboro, within a 45 minute or less drive from Asheboro. That one million dollars could have been put to better use elsewhere - or maybe just helping provide primary care for people like Ginger, my friend who was turned away from the shiny building with all the bells and whistles.

Cousin Bedford needs to come back for a visit, and see that those "fond memories" are so much faded and worn.

Bob Morrison sold my family a cancer center.  And why?  Because cancer is the new "hot" thing in the medical industry.  And it is an "industry" now, prostituting itself under the guise of the public good and charity.

Bob wants the bucks to come in . . . but are they?  Has anybody checked to see if the cancer center at Randolph Hospital is actually making money?  Maybe someone should . . . since this was obviously never about serving the locals, it was all about making a few people rich.  Bob found an oblivious donor, and got his new building . . . and a parachute/bonus.

Think it over, if a "non-profit" hospital, who claims they serve their local community, turns away a single, unemployed mother wanting a breast cancer screening - and who had valid medical insurance to pay for it, what does that say to you?  Can you really believe that this cancer center exists to serve the public after reading this?

I can't. Then again, I never did.

I have suspicions that my cousin Betsy reads this blog, so I want to ask her, and to have her ask her brother Bedford; do we really want our family name associated with this sort of thing? I can recall your Father and my Uncle as a medical practitioner, and I cannot see that he would ever sanction this sort of treatment of a person seeking medical services from Randolph Hospital or any of its affiliates.

I know that my late father Henry would not approve, and I can almost hear a stream of profanity coming from behind the family mausoleum off Salisbury Street as I write this.

I've even questioned our other cousins in Winston-Salem, as to if they thought that Bob Morrison was overpaid for where he was.  They both agreed that over $700,000 per year in Asheboro was a VERY good salary . . . in fact they'd take that about anywhere.  The question is, WHY is Bob being paid that much money by a "non-profit" hospital serving a struggling mill town? 

I'm asking my cousins.  Honestly, do we really want our name on that building?  Supposedly it is named in memory of our grandparents. I never knew my grandmother, and my grandfather died when I was still a young child. But, from what others have told me about their character and demeanor, they would firmly and surely disapprove of what has been done by a hospital that uses their name.

Contact me:  henryarmfield@gmail.com. I genuinely believe that we need to disassociate ourselves from all of this.  We weren't brought up to treat others in such a fashion, nor should we provide the financial backing and credibility for those who do.

Author's Note:  I want to thank Buzz Armfield for his support (both of me and of Ginger), and for having the integrity/courage to speak out.  And (heavy sigh), after six years in the GSO blogosphere, I have to wonder what might have been if Edward Cone, scion of the Cone family and blogger-king/local journalist . . . whose name is emblazoned over the door of the hospital that Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin were trying to please/protect when they viciously and methodically destroyed everything I had worked so hard to build . . . had put even half this passion and conviction behind wishing me well.

Readers who are not comfortable posting comments may feel free to contact me at MHJMD@triad.rr.com.  Everything is off the record unless you want it on the record.